Why would super-secret spy software be written in a video game language?  As security researchers continue to unpack the digital mystery that is the Flame virus, that's just one question looming over perhaps the world's most intriguing digital whodunit.

With all the talk about Flame being the most powerful, ingenious and stealthy computer virus ever written, some properties of the mysterious malicious software are causing confusion.

---

For one thing, the program takes up 20 megabytes of space on infected machines. That's not stealthy; large files usually indicate sloppy programming. Also, unlike Stuxnet, Flame didn't come with precision targeting, and hasn't yet been credited with doing anything as impressive as hacking nuclear power plant computers. But perhaps most mysterious of all: Part of Flame’s code was written in the Lua programming language, a simple language used almost exclusively by video game programmers.  Why would a nation-state trying to commit secret espionage toy with video game software?

"This is not a stealth operation," said Marcus Carey, who worked as a security analyst at the National Security Agency for eight years before joining the security firm Rapid7 in Boston.

News of the Flame virus hit Monday, as multiple computer security firms claimed the program represented a huge escalation in cyberwarfare. Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs, among the first to analyze the virus, called it the most powerful malicious program ever.

“The complexity and functionality of the newly discovered malicious program exceed those of all other cyber menaces known to date,” it said.

Flame reportedly comes loaded with lots of capabilities, such as remotely turning on victims' PC microphones, but it's hardly the first virus to accomplish that.  And unlike Stuxnet, it's yet clear that Flame used a series of so-called 0-day exploits --  vulnerabilities in software that are undiscovered by the security industry and for which there are no antidotes.  While initial reports immediately linked Stuxnet to Flame, primarily because they both seem to target Iran, skepticism is beginning to build that the two are directly linked.

That's partly because the two programs were written in very different ways. Flame’s authors used Lua, something that confuses observers.

"Lua in a spy tool is just ... weird," said one Israeli programmer who uses Lua and requested anonymity. "The little snippet I've seen of the code seems so ... ordinary ... really like the work of your average programmer.  Stuxnet sounded genius.”

Said another: "Lua is considered a kids language.... All I see around that is built with Lua are games. I mean, the syntax is very simple."

Not exactly the stuff of high-tech international espionage. Or is it?

Lua has been around since the 1980s, developed at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. It was created out of necessity; at the time, trade barriers made importing software development tools too expensive.  Development of Lua as a programming language remains centered in Brazil, where a small group of programmers make infrequent updates to the language.  But it's become a favorite platform for a few thousand devotees around the world, who are attracted to its simplicity, its ability to play well with other software and its tiny footprint, which makes it ideal for use on embedded devices or games, where memory and space are at a premium.

Unlike other programming languages that grow in size out of necessity over  time, Lua has actually shrunken in recent years, as developers have revised and refined its architecture.

Its name – Portuguese for “moon” – hints at Lua’s use as a subordinate language to attach satellite projects to larger pieces of software.

At the Lua-L discussion list, Flame talk was all the rage on Monday, as its users’ small corner of the technology world was suddenly thrust into the limelight. One even the virus "in some morbid way...an endorsement for Lua."

"I'm a bit perplexed about the alleged high sophistication of that malware, when I see unobfuscated Lua with self-descriptive names," added a poster identified as Enrico Colombini

But longtime Lua programmer Erik Hougaard, based in Denmark, said such opinions show a fundamental misunderstanding of Lua's simple elegance as a programming tool.

"It's a well-kept secret, but it's everywhere. It's hard to pick up an Xbox game without it," said Hougaard, who now uses Lua to program robots but has also used it to create from-scratch accounting software and other financial tools at EFoqus Danmark A/S.  "It's not sexy, but it's unique. It's so small you can fit it onto a single chip."

That's essential, because Lua includes both program and programming language in one tidy package -- meaning programs written in Lua will run reliably on machines as diverse as PCs and iPhones. 

"Lua is quite common in the mobile application space. If someone has Angry Birds installed on their iPhone, they are using Lua," said Carey, the security analyst. In fact, thousands of iPhone apps are written with Lua, he said.

Hackers have taken notice. While security firms have said they can't think of another computer virus before Flame that used Lua, it is a fundamental part of a favorite hacker tool called "NMAP." NMAP is used to scan the Internet for computers with potentially exploitable vulnerabilities; it’s the first tool used by hackers looking for trouble, and by security professionals looking to plug holes. NMAP permits use of a scripting language that runs under Lua so hackers can adjust the tool as needed.

"People have been using Lua to hack networks for a while, so this shouldn't surprise anyone," Carey said.  "Attackers are just using what works."

Lua first came to hackers' attention about two or three years ago, roughly when some analysts believe Flame was written, Carey said.

As with most information about Flame, Lua's appearance in the virus can be interpreted in two ways:

• Flame's writers may have been ahead of their time, using a unique programming language to create their cybermonster, and further confuse computer security professionals.
• Or, Flame's writers may have been video gamers and relative amateurs who didn't bother to do much to cover their tracks.

Symantec Corp. believes the use of Lua supports the former theory. It’s one of many security firms calling Flame one of the most powerful and complex virus ever written.

"Lua is scriptable, easy to understand, and easy to update. That said, it’s not used often," said Vikram Thakur, principal security manager at Symantec Security Response. "Anecdotally, we can’t think of another threat that is written in Lua..... The usage of the programming language is what makes the program, independent of the language, interesting."

But is it the work of genius, and a sign that cyberwar has escalated a new and dangerous level? Carey is not so sure.

"Saying this is the work of a nation-state is premature," he said. "This is not a particularly clever piece of malware or uber-elite." And despite the fact that it apparently operated in stealth for at least two years, many experts say it is too big to have been conceived as a spy tool.

"What's with the size?" said the anonymous Israeli Lua programmer. "It's like the trick they do in the movies of making a scene on the train/plane” to create a diversion while committing a crime. 

Colombini was even more direct in his assessment.

"I find it difficult to believe this to be the work of an intelligence service, at least of a decent one,” he said. “Obfuscating … the Lua code would have made analysis more difficult and above all slower. In the spying business gaining time has a very high value. … No self-respecting intelligence service (would have neglected to do that)."  

So far, most of the roughly 300 confirmed Flame infections have been in Middle Eastern countries that are natural enemies of Israel, including 189 in Iran, according to Kaspersky Lab.  

“If it weren't for the peculiar geographical distribution, (which is) the only thing that makes one think of politically charged malware, I'd think of a sort of malware construction kit,” designed to simply collect a large series of attack tools in one place, Colombini said.   

Given that the subject is covert cyberwar, confusion, half-truths and disinformation are the rule rather than the exception. Already, an unnamed U.S. official has told NBC News that the U.S. government is probably responsible for it; while Israeli officials have hinted that their side developed it.

Something else concerns Carey about the way that the Flame narrative has progressed so far.  Much of what we know about Flame has come directly from Iran's Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center.

 "Generally, we don't believe anything Iran says. Here, we seem to be believing everything they say," he said. "But this incident reinforces a storyline for Iran playing the victim."

Symantec, and many other security organizations, have said the sheer size of Flame is making thorough analysis of the virus a slog. Early reports on the malicious program all came with warnings that findings were preliminary.  Symantec expects to issue a follow-up later this week.

As the United Nations and Iran warn that the newly discovered Flame computer virus may be the most potent weapon of its kind, U.S. computer security experts tell NBC News that the virus bears the hallmarks of a U.S. cyber espionage operation, specifically that of the super-secret National Security Agency.

The Flame virus, which is intended to gather intelligence -- not destroy equipment or data, as was the case with the notorious Stuxnet virus -- is too sophisticated to be the work of another country, said one U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It was U.S.,” said the official, who acknowledged having no first-hand knowledge of how the virus operates or was introduced into the Iranian computers.

The U.S. was also believed to have a hand in the creation and insertion of the Stuxnet virus, which targeted Iran’s uranium-enriching centrifuges.

---

The newly discovered Flame virus essentially “colonizes” the targeted computers, giving hackers control over critical data stored on them, according to cybersecurity experts who spoke with NBC News.

 

U.S. intelligence officials declined to discuss the virus. “We have no comment,” said one.  Israeli officials, suspected in previous attacks, denied involvement.

The virus was first discovered and announced over the weekend by a Russian cybersecurity organization after reports of massive data losses in Iranian government computers.  Kaspersky Lab told Reuters it found the Flame infection after the International Telecommunications Union asked it to investigate. By some accounts, the virus has been operating in the wild for as long as five years.

"This is the most serious (cyber) warning we have ever put out," Marco Obiso, cybersecurity coordinator for the U.N.'s Geneva-based ITU, told Reuters on Tuesday, referring to a bulletin about the virus expected to be issued in the next few days.

The confidential warning will tell member nations that the Flame virus is a dangerous espionage tool that could potentially be used to attack critical infrastructure, Obiso said.

Other experts said the virus appears to be a different type of invader than Stuxnet.

"From reading press reports, this appears to be penetrating networks to surveil, as opposed to destroy, as was the case with Stuxnet,” said Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counter Terrorism Center and now an NBC News analyst. “Such computer network operations are core components of what our and other intelligence services do day in and day out.

“Our intelligence services know that any weakness in an information system can mean the entire system is vulnerable.  This makes defense very, very hard.  Network defenses must work reliably and in real time across the entire network to defend against persistent intruders."

Iran’s cybersecurity officials seem to agree.  The New York Times reported Iran’s Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center issued a warning Tuesday, saying, “This malware is a platform which is capable of receiving and installing various modules for different goals.”

If this is indeed a U.S. cyberwarfare operation, said computer security expert Roger Cressey, the target is likely to be Iran’s nuclear program and its decision-making apparatus. 

"Whoever has developed this is engaged in very sophisticated intelligence gathering on computer networks throughout the region.  Clearly, Iran is a top priority for this program," said Cressey, former chief of staff of  the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board under George W. Bush and now an NBC News analyst.

Two years ago, the U.S. and Israel were suspected of inserting the Stuxnet virus into the Iranian centrifuge center at Natanz. When the control software was corrupted, the motors that control the uranium centrifuge operations didn’t operate correctly, wobbling instead of spinning the way they’re supposed to, U.S. officials say.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that the work of Kaspersky Labs helped Iran uncover the infection and remove it from the centrifuge control program.  Cybersecurity officials have told NBC News that the infection, while heavily publicized, was not as effective in disrupting Iran’s nuclear program as has been portrayed in some media accounts.

But Stuxnet is an example, said one U.S. official, of how those aiming to slow the Iranian nuclear program, which the U.S. says is aimed at producing nuclear weaponry, can have an effect similar to that of economic sanctions. The Iran program keeps making progress, he said, but never quite gets there.

Other U.S. officials said that the viruses not only affect the targeted program; they also make Iranian officials “paranoid.” Additionally, countering the attacks diverts valuable assets and resources from the core mission, they said. 

While the Flame virus appears to be aimed more at gathering intelligence on the Iranian program, it, too, aims to make the Iranians paranoid, the officials said. It does so by making them wonder about security and by raising questions about whether  the enemy knows the intricacies of Iranian decision making, not just on the nuclear program but on a host of other issues important to the U.S. and the West, they said.

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News; Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel contributed to this report.

 

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• US expels Syria diplomat after UN finds Houla victims were 'executed'
• UN agency appoints Mugabe as a 'leader for tourism'
• Teenager allegedly held as slave in Bosnia for years
• Britain's PM eats humble pie over snack tax
• At least 16 killed in 5.8-magnitude earthquake in Italy
• Brother of doctor who worked with CIA in bin Laden hunt seeks US protection

We've seen them in the movies, but now we can read the real-life history of America's nuclear warriors, the Nuclear Emergency Search Team, known as NEST. The story of NEST, which would protect the U.S. in the case of an attempt at nuclear extortion or terrorism, is told in declassified documents published Tuesday.

The 69 documents, released under the federal Freedom of Information Act, were published by the National Security Archive, a respected research organization at George Washington University. (More about the National Security Archive.)

---

They tell the story of MIGHTY DERRINGER, a training exercise in 1986 in which NEST attempted to find a nuclear device smuggled into Indianapolis. In the training scenario, the device was detonated, destroying 20 blocks of downtown Indianapolis. 

The archive said the documents "offer the first detailed public look at the inner workings of the agencies, military units and other U.S. entities responsible for protecting the country from a terrorist nuclear attack."

And they reveal problems that can arise in coordinating the many organizations that would respond to such an attack: problems of bomb detection, interagency coordination, containment of contamination and general "confusion." 

"While the MIGHTY DERRINGER exercise and resulting documents are over two decades old," the archive said, "the institutions participating in the exercise retain their roles today, and the issues confronting them in 1986 are similar to the ones that they would face in responding to a nuclear threat in 2012 (and beyond)."

 You can read all 69 documents at this page from the National Security Archive.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Teen wins right to wear 'Jesus Is Not a Homophobe' T-shirt to school
• Nuclear terrorism: 1986 NEST files reveal confusion in training exercise
• Violent holiday weekend claims at least 10 lives in Chicago
• What caused naked face-chewing attack: Bath salts, LSD?
• Video: Bear cools off in backyard pool

 

 

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – The brother of the Pakistani doctor imprisoned for helping the CIA to track Osama bin Laden says the family needs protection, and the U.S. government should provide it. 

Jamil Afridi, elder brother to Dr. Shakil Afridi, spoke to NBC News on Monday in Peshawar, after he and his lawyers addressed a group of journalists about his brother's case. 

Pakistan jails doctor who helped CIA track down bin Laden

"My appeal to the U.S. government is that they give Dr. Shakil protection, and give us – his brothers and sisters – protection as well," said Afridi. "We have no protection here."

Dr. Shakil Afridi was arrested in the weeks after the May 2011 U.S. raid on the bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The doctor ran a fake vaccination campaign for U.S. intelligence as part of an attempt to get inside the compound and confirm Bin Laden's location. Though those plans failed, U.S. officials have said Dr. Afridi's efforts did help lead them to bin Laden. 

---

Dr. Afridi was tried under a legal system known as the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), which applies only in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas. Trials are conducted by a local government official in consultation with tribal elders, and the accused are not allowed legal representation. Dr. Afridi was convicted on treason charges and sentenced to 33 years in prison. 

His brother dismissed the charges against Dr. Afridi as "false," saying he did nothing against Pakistan's national interest, and that "anything" could happen to him or his family now. 

'Schizophrenic ally': US to ax $33 million in Pakistan aid?

"For one whole year, we had no idea where he was – whether he was alive or dead," said Afridi. "Now they say he's in Central Jail, Peshawar, but we're not allowed to see him."

Dr. Afridi's conviction further complicated already tense relations between the U.S. and Pakistan. U.S. officials demanded his release, claiming his efforts helped to capture an enemy to both Pakistan and the U.S. But Pakistani officials have called Dr. Afridi's decision to work for a foreign intelligence agency a "serious offense." 

U.S. officials say they expect to continue the conversation about Dr. Afridi with their Pakistani counterparts, but the list of unresolved issues between the two countries continues to grow.

Both sides are negotiating the re-opening of the overland NATO supply routes that run through Pakistan – shuttered since last November – and the Pakistan government also is calling  for a complete halt on all U.S. drone strikes within the country. In the last week alone, there have been four strikes carried out in the border region with Afghanistan. 

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Can voters force candidates to compromise in Egypt run-off?
• 'War criminal': UK ex-PM Blair heckled while testifying
• Horror and death in former Syrian rebel stronghold
• Couple kept boy, 11, in coal cellar as punishment for raiding refrigerator
• Video: British woman may face death in Indonesia

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

 

You might have seen recently that iconic retailer JC Penney is slumping badly. You almost certainly have seen the reason why: A massive, creative and aggressive new advertising and pricing campaign that promises simplified prices.

No more coupons or confusing multiple markdowns. No more 600 sales a year. No more deceptive circulars full of sneaky fine print. Heck, the store even did away with the 99 cents on the end of most price tags.  Just honest, clear prices.

Sounds like a sales pitch aimed at consumer advocates and collectors of fine print frustration, like me. As it turned out, it was a sales pitch that only a consumer advocate could love.

Shoppers hated it.

---

The campaign, which launched on Feb. 1, appears to be a disaster. Revenue dropped 20 percent for the first quarter compared to last year. Customer traffic fell 10 percent. Last year, the company made $64 million in the first quarter; this year, it lost $163 million.

Could we have a moment of silence please for what might be the last heartbeat of honest price tags?

Not only did Penney’s plain pricing structure fail to attract fair-minded shoppers –  business reporters wrote with seeming glee during the past few days that it “repelled” them.

Don't blame Ellen DeGeneres, the spokeswoman for the Penney’s plain pricing campaign. If only executives at the firm were familiar with the work of behavioral economist Xavier Gabaix and the concept of "shrouding," all of this could have been avoided.

Seven years ago, Gabaix and co-author David Laibson wrote a brilliant (if depressing) paper on shrouding and "information suppression" that should be required reading for all consumers and executives considering a harebrained new pricing strategy. The principle is simple, and shows why cheating is rampant in our markets and why honesty is rarely the best policy.

First, a definition of shrouding:

In days gone by, price tags were simple. An apple cost 10 cents.  A cup of coffee cost $1. But today, the consumer marketplace is far more complicated, giving sellers the opportunity to create confusion. Many items have follow-up costs that make the original price tag meaningless. 

Computer printers are the classic example. You might get a great deal on a printer, but if the ink is expensive, you lose in the end. In fact, Gabaix argues that it's impossible for consumers to intelligently shop for printers. No consumer knows how much ink costs -- the cartridges don't come in standard sizes, the amount of ink used to print varies and ink costs are unpredictable. That makes the true price of a printer "shrouded," in Gabaix's terminology. Not quite hidden, but not quite clear, either.  Advantage seller. It's easy for printer companies to lowball printer price tags and overcharge for ink, enabling them to print money.

If you think about it, shrouded price tags are everywhere. The hotel website might say "$99 a night" but you know the bill will be more like $120 or $130. Pay TV companies promise $30-a-month service, which ends up costing more like $50. And what happens when you buy a TV with a store credit card that offers an upfront discount but a complex interest charge? And so it goes.

Consumers complain about this constantly. That's the basis of the Red Tape Chronicles in fact. At its best, the maddening mixture of coupons, rebates, sales and fine print fees can feel like a game. At worst, it's being cheated. You'd think shoppers would love a chance to buy from a store that doesn't play these games, the way car buyers (allegedly) like shopping at no-haggle auto dealerships.

They don’t, says Gabaix, and Penney should have known better.

“I think it was an ill-advised move,” he said. 

All this price manipulation is really an information war, he says. Shoppers hunt for the tricks that let them save money. Stores hide booby traps that let them take money. It's a bad system, one I've labeled "Gotcha Capitalism." But it is the system we have now.

And it's simply impossible, Gabaix argues, to be the one company that attempts to bridge this information gap.  If a firm tries to educate consumers on tricks and traps, and tries to offer an honest product, a funny thing happens: Consumers say, "Thank you for the tips," and go back to the tricky companies, where they exploit the new knowledge to get cheaper prices, leaving the "honest" firm in the dust.

“Once you educate consumers on the right way to shop, they will seek out the lowest cost store, and that will be the one with the shrouded prices,” he said. “Once they are savvier consumers, you make less money from them.”

Gabaix calls this the "curse of debiasing." And it leads to this depressing conclusion: "Shrouding is the more profitable strategy."

To oversimplify for a moment, here's Penney's problem. They told the world that retailers only offer their best prices during crazy sales, and Penney stores would no longer host them. Sensible consumers apparently took that information to heart and decided to simply wait for such sales at other stores. As an added benefit, Penney lowered consumers' search costs, because they now knew they didn't need to bother driving to a Penney’s store anymore.

That's probably not what new Penney CEO Ron Johnson had in mind when he decided to spend his marketing budget on those witty DeGeneres ads. A former Apple Inc. executive who took the Penney’s job in November, he thought he was lifting the store out of the brutal commodity clothing market. He may ultimately succeed at that. But he won't do it by telling customers the firm's pricing is fairer than at other stores, Gabaix believes.

"It will be a very, very uphill battle," Gabaix said. "So, sorry for them."

There have been a few other celebrated efforts by companies to educate consumers that their higher prices are really lower prices after hidden fees. During the last decade, Intercontinental Hotels experimented with up-front pricing that included all fees on its website. Executives at the firm told the New York Times that customers left in droves, choosing competitors with lowball prices. 

More recently, Southwest Airlines has undertaken the most aggressive anti-shrouding campaign to date, picking on other airlines' baggage fees. The profitable carrier is holding its own with its "Bags Fly Free" campaign, but there are indications that the firm won't be able to resist all that free money forever. In what may be a sign of things to come, Southwest elected to leave AirTran's baggage fee structure in place after it acquired the competitor last year. 

Shrouding isn't the only reason Penney's pricing plan is flawed. The firm is also leaving a lot of money on the table by rejecting a phenomenon known as "price discrimination." Some people have more money than time, and some have more time than money.  Some shoppers don't mind spending hours to save $20; others would gladly give a store $20 to escape quickly. Smart retailers get money from both. By killing couponing, Penney has eliminated its ability to satisfy price discriminators.

And as others have pointed out, markdowns serve the age-old retailing trick of "anchoring." For some reason, even very smart consumers feel better paying $60 for something if you initially tell them it costs $100, and then reduce the price.

But the real problem is Penney's ill-fated attempt to cast itself as the only fair poker player in a game of cheats. Shoppers just aren't buying it. However unsophisticated consumers are, very few of them believe a pair of shoes bought at Penney's everyday low price will be cheaper than a pair of shoes bought at Macy's on clearance with a 25 percent off coupon.

Like it or not, hidden fees – and secret discounts – are here to stay.

*Follow Bob Sullivan on Facebook.
*Follow Bob Sullivan on Twitter. 

 

U.S. military officials are investigating whether new images of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of al-Qaida’s 9-11 terror attacks, posted on a jihadist website were smuggled out of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

The photos, which show a relaxed and often smiling Mohammed, were published Wednesday by "Al-Ebdaa," an jihadist media group, and documented by Flashpoint Partners, a global security company run by NBC News terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann.

---

Kohlmann said the images appear to have been taken at GTMO, the U.S. Navy base and detention facility in Cuba, where Mohammed is currently facing a military tribunal with four other alleged al-Qaida members on murder and terrorism charges in connection with the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Pentagon officials told NBC News on Thursday that investigators were attempting to determine if the photos were in fact taken at GTMO or had been photo-shopped. If it is determined that they are photos from GTMO, the investigators would attempt to determine how the photos could have left GTMO. 

Under GTMO regulations, unauthorized photos of detainees are not permitted to be taken or distributed. 

Mohammed and his fellow defendants, who defiantly refused to enter pleas in their initial appearance before the tribunal early this month, face a possible death penalty if they are found guilty of organizing the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

Jim Miklaszewski is chief Pentagon correspondent; msnbc.com's Mike Brunker also contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Aid workers targeted amid new Pakistan crisis
• From danger zone to organic farm: Israel targets mine fields
• Euro crisis turns Spanish suburbs into ghost towns
• 'Boiling point': On Lebanon’s Syria Street, a mini-civil war brews
• Jubilee treat: Canadian Mounties guard UK's queen
• Africa's Rainbow Nation troubled by racist time warp
• 'Nearly empty': A rare glimpse inside Syria rebel stronghold
• Terror suspect's eye color? UK's flying cameras know

 

Most states have laws prohibiting kids and teenagers from patronizing tanning salons because of the skin cancer risk it poses. But are tanning salons following the rules.

Today's investigative reporter Jeff Rossen wondered the same thing, and sent a couple young NBC staffers out with hidden cameras  to put them to the test.

---

Watch the video above or read what they found here.

 

 

Reuters reporter Ioan Grillo has written a fascinating and frightening profile of Mexico’s feared Zetas drug cartel, which has grown to become a transnational criminal syndicate with tentacles reaching into many other enterprises.

Some excerpts of his reporting:

---

Formed in 1998 by 14 former Mexican soldiers, the Zetas have grown to command more than 10,000 gunmen from the Rio Grande, on the border with Texas, to deep in Central America. Their rapid expansion has displaced Mexico's older cartels in many areas, giving them a dominant position in the multibillion-dollar cross-border drug trade, as well as extortion, kidnapping and other criminal businesses.

But it is bloodshed that has made the Zetas notorious. And feared.

Zetas killers have been arrested for some of the worst atrocities in Mexico's drug war, including the murders of hundreds of people whose bodies have been found in mass graves with alarming frequency, the massacre of 72 foreign migrant workers headed to the United States, and the burning of a casino that claimed 52 lives.

---

Mexican police officers and soldiers on the front lines say the Zetas have more in common with insurgents than traditional gangs. "The Zetas act like urban guerrillas," said Florencio Santos, a former soldier and now police chief in Guadalupe, a town on the southern outskirts of Monterrey. "They'll make a phone call to get the police out, then block the street in front of the patrol cars and open fire from the front and the side."

---

They are creeping into the United States, too. A grand jury in Laredo, Texas, in April indicted four alleged Zetas for conspiracy to murder and traffic drugs on U.S. soil. The charges follow another Laredo trial in January in which two alleged Zetas were found guilty on weapons and homicide charges.

Zetas gunmen are alleged by Mexican prosecutors to be behind the killing of U.S. customs agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico in 2011, the first American agent to be murdered on duty here since the 1980s. The U.S. government is offering a $5 million reward for the capture of the Zetas supreme commander, 37-year-old Heriberto Lazcano, alias "The Executioner."

You can read the entire piece here.  

Some additional  information on the Zetas: 

2008 bulletin on the gang by the Foreign Policy Research Institute  

Insightcrime.org’s profile of the group

Recent reporting on the Zetas from Daylife.com

NEW YORK — The nurses, doctors, hospital, attorney and accountant for the reclusive heiress Huguette Clark coerced or influenced her to give them more than $44 million in gifts, the executor of her estate claimed in a remarkable legal petition filed Tuesday in Manhattan. The executor asked the court to order all the money to be repaid.

The executor doesn't deny that Clark authorized nearly all of these gifts, relentlessly writing hundreds of checks in her own steady hand until her eyesight gave out at the age of 102.

The accusations were vigorously denied by Clark's attorney, whose representative said, "To suggest that these gifts were not from Mrs. Clark's generous heart is to denigrate the person who gave these gifts, as well as the recipients who cared for her with their love."

The most-favored object of Clark's generosity was her registered nurse, Hadassah Peri, an immigrant from the Philippines who had been randomly assigned in 1991 by a home healthcare agency. For 20 years Peri was the daytime private nurse, working 12-hour shifts, five or six days a week, taking care of Clark's health, her hygiene and her purchases of dolls at auctions. She was paid at an annual salary of $131,040. In addition, she and her family received $31 million in gifts, including the money to buy five homes, jewelry, dolls and a Stradivarius violin (though not Clark's best Stradivarius).

---

Another $6.3 million, including a $6 million painting by Manet, was given to Beth Israel Medical Center, which allowed Clark to live in the hospital although she was quite healthy for most of her last two decades.

Clark's two physicians and their families received gifts of $3.1 million.

The night nurse and her family got $1.1 million.

The accountant, $375,000.

The attorney, just $60,000 — in addition to $1,850,000 given after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, for a security system for the attorney's daughter's Israeli community on the West Bank.

All of these amounts were gifts on top of salaries.

If the judge in Surrogate's Court agrees with the executor, all will have to be repaid.

The legal petition filed late Tuesday afternoon, available here from NBCNews.com, is an attempt to claw back into the estate millions that the executor claims was bled away by undue influence or fraud.

Update: On Wednesday the executor filed another petition, accusing Clark's attorney of malpractice and breaches of fiduciary duty, possibly opening the door for some of the claims to be covered by professional liability insurance policies. The executor asks the court to require the attorney and his law firm to return all legal fees paid by Clark from 1997 until her death.

Huguette (pronounced "oo-GET") Marcelle Clark, born in Paris in 1906, inherited her fortune from William A. Clark, a U.S. senator from Montana who was among the richest men of the Gilded Age, a copper miner, a banker, a builder of railroads, and founder of the city of Las Vegas.

His youngest daughter attracted the attention of NBC News in 2009 because of her vacant but well-manicured mansions and questions about the management of her money. She lived her last 20 years in spartan hospital rooms in New York City, dying in May 2011 just weeks before her 105th birthday. (The archive of Clark stories, photos and videos is at http://clark.msnbc.com/.)

'Virtually no visitors'
The executor's petition draws a picture of a woman isolated and controlled by others from 1991, when she was admitted to Doctors Hospital, until 2011, when she died at Beth Israel Medical Center, One of her former attorneys represented her for 20 years without meeting her face to face, instead talking to her on the phone and through a closed door.

"Mrs. Clark had virtually no visitors other than persons who were on her payroll," wrote Peter S. Schram, outside counsel for the Public Administrator of New York County. That official, Ethel J. Griffin, was appointed by the court as the temporary executor of the Clark estate after questions were raised about the actions of Clark's attorney and accountant, whom Clark had named as executors.

"Mrs. Clark," Schram wrote, "was completely dependent for her physical and emotional needs on a small group of individuals, who were her only contacts with the world outside of her hospital room."

The executor claims that this close circle of caregivers exerted undue influence and control over Clark, making her unable to make free and intelligent decisions. The executor claims that the attorney and accountant never fully informed Clark of the tax ramifications of her gift-giving. The executor also says that Clark suffered from various unspecified "physical and mental infirmities," and by 2009, at age 102, she was suffering from severe loss of sight and hearing along with episodes of "hallucinations and confusion."

Those claims will be countered by documents showing that Clark, while a recluse who saw few visitors, was never diagnosed with any mental illness, paid close attention to her financial affairs through the years, and rebuffed or ignored the advice of attorneys and accountants, even as they warned her that the gifts were making her cash poor, running up a tab of millions in unpaid gift taxes.

The petition's claims were rejected by Clark's attorney, Wallace Bock, whose own attorney issued a statement.

The filing by the executor "reflects a total disloyalty and lack of fiduciary care to Mrs. Clark," attorney John D. Dadakis of the firm of Holland & Knight said in a written statement to NBC News. "Our client, Wallace Bock, has honored Mrs. Clark's wishes during his career and handled her affairs with the utmost duty of loyalty to her. Mrs. Clark understood each and every gift she made, and they were made with the love that she had for those who were close to her.

"To suggest that these gifts were not from Mrs. Clark's generous heart is to denigrate the person who gave these gifts, as well as the recipients who cared for her with their love," Dadakis wrote. "All of the records reflect that Mrs. Clark actively enjoyed her generosity and fully understood what she was giving. Mr. Bock will vigorously defend the acts of Mrs. Clark and we fully expect that the record will prove that all the gifts of Mrs. Clark were made by her, being fully aware of what she was doing."

Hadassah Peri has not spoken publicly about Clark, but a press agent issued a statement on her behalf in June after she was named in the will: "I saw Madame Clark virtually every day for the 20 years. I was her private duty nurse but also her close friend. I knew her as a kind and generous person, with whom I shared many wonderful moments and whom I loved very much. I am profoundly sad at her passing, awed at the generosity she has shown me and my family, and eternally grateful. Just as Madame Clark demonstrated kindness toward others in her actions, so, too, will I and my family devote a substantial portion of this bequest toward making the world a better place for all people."

All the parties named in the court papers have until Aug. 8 to respond in Surrogate's Court.

The gifts claimed by the executor as not valid include the following:

• $17,117,326.03 given by Clark to the nurse, Peri, in more than 200 personal checks written by Clark from 1991 to 2001.
• $5 million paid to Peri, funded by a line of credit from JPMorgan because Clark had insufficient liquid assets. The executor acknowledges that the attorney, Bock, had a signed authorization from Clark for this payment and nearly all the others listed here, and by 2009 she had signed over to him a document called a durable power of attorney, giving him authority over certain financial affairs.
• $3,883,685.78 given to Peri to purchase five homes: a co-op apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, two condos on the Upper East Side, a house in the borough of Brooklyn, and a vacation home in Ocean, N.J., as disclosed by NBC News in 2010.
• $1,935,200 in other tangible gifts to Peri, including 84 pieces of jewelry worth $667,300, a doll worth $64,400; a Stradivarius violin worth $1.2 million (not Clark's $6 million Strad, which was sold); and three harpsichords worth $3,500.
• $60,000 in a check written by Clark's attorney in 2009 to Peri.
• $3.4 million to Peri's family, including $1,503,813 to her husband, Daniel Peri, $706,550 to her son David, $628,250 to her son Abraham, and $632,450 to her daughter, Guela.
• $685,000 given to Clark's licensed practical nurse on the night shift, Geraldine Coffey, who also worked from 1991 to 2011 at an annual salary of $131,040.
• $358,327 to help Coffey buy two condo apartments on the Upper East Side.
• $85,554 for tuition of Coffey's children.
• $30,000 given to Coffey by the attorney.
• $10,000 given to Erlinda Ysit, a licensed practical nurse for Clark for seven years.
• $6 million Manet painting sold to benefit Beth Israel Medical Center, which allowed Clark to live in the hospital, even though for most of her two-decade stay "there was no medical need." This gift, and $295,000 in other gifts, was made on top of the $300,000 to $400,000 a year she paid to the hospital to live there. "At no time did Beth Israel, its staff, or any other physician or expert conduct a neurological examination or psychological examination of Mrs. Clark or otherwise ensure that she possessed the capacity required to make a gift to Beth Israel," Schram wrote.
• $500,000 given to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The executor did not yet ask for this money to be returned, but asked for the court to order an inquiry.
• $1,168,000 given to Dr. Jack Rudick, one of her physicians, and his wife, Irene Rudick.
• $1 million lent by Clark to Dr. Rudick, on which he made no payments, and which she forgave.
• $667,951 given to Dr. Henry Singman, her primary treating physician for 20 years.
• $33,857 paid by attorney Bock to cover Singman's professional liability insurance premiums. (Not authorized in writing by Clark, the executor said.)
• $200,000 paid to Singman's family.
• $1,850,000 paid to an Israeli community on the West Bank where the family of attorney Bock lives. Documents show that Bock asked Clark in 2000 if she wanted to contribute to a security system. The total amount to be raised was $1,850,000, and Clark wrote in that amount, agreeing to pay the entire cost. Only five days earlier, according to the court records, Bock and accountant Irving Kamsler had written letters to Clark, warning that her gifts were out of hand, that she would owe $12.5 million in gift taxes, and that she might have to sell assets to raise cash. The executor accuses Bock of failing to remind her, when he solicited the gift benefiting his family, of this earlier warning about her financial situation, as well as failing to advise her of the right to seek independent counsel, nor arranging a medical evaluation to confirm that she had sufficient capacity to make the gift.
• A $60,000 check written by Bock to himself in December 2009. Bock testified at his deposition in March that this check was authorized by a letter signed by Clark a month earlier. That letter was prepared by Bock, who gave $48,000 of the gift to his law firm, in line with his partnership agreement. The executor wants that money back as well, claiming that Clark never intended to make any gift to Collier, Halpern, Newberg, Nolletti & Bock.
• $375,000 in checks written by Clark to Kamsler, a felon and registered sex offender, from 2000 to 2008, on top of his monthly salary, and a $60,000 check written by Bock to Kamsler in 2009, authorized by a letter from Clark. (Bock at the same time wrote checks to nurses, doctors and others, mostly in line with payments that she had made previously.)

Other gifts are not being challenged by the executor. For example, Clark gave $10 million in 2000 to her friend Suzanne Pierre, now deceased, but Pierre might not be considered to have a confidential or fiduciary relationship with Clark.

Update: An attorney for Kamsler, the accountant, issued a statement on Wednesday: "Mr. Kamsler provided dedicated service to Mrs. Clark, a very private person, for over 30 years," said the statement by attorney Marci Goldstein Kokalas of the firm Lazare Potter & Giacovas. "Unfortunately, the Public Administrator has misconstrued Mrs. Clark's generosity and made unfair allegations that have, yet again, brought her affairs to public scrutiny. The instant action dishonors Mrs. Clark's memory by casting a shadow on the gifts she bestowed throughout her life to those she cared for and trusted. Mr. Kamsler is confident the facts will reveal that Mrs. Clark always acted of her own volition and free from the influence of others."

Criminal investigation
Originally the executors of the Clark estate were Clark's attorney and accountant, but the court revoked the accountant's authority, and suspended the attorney from his role, leaving only the public official to manage the estate. The judge, Surrogate Kristin Booth Glen, acted after the public administrator's attorney revealed that Kamsler failed to file gift tax returns from 1997 through 2003, and falsely claimed on later returns that all taxes had been paid, leaving Clark owing millions in gift taxes plus interest and possible penalties. (See the earlier story.)

Though a criminal investigation was launched in August 2010 into the handling of Clark's finances by Bock and Kamsler, no one has been charged. Both men have maintained that they did nothing more than carry out the wishes of a woman who wanted to protect her privacy. The investigation continues by the Elder Abuse Unit of the New York County District Attorney's Office. The investigation was prompted in part by reports by NBC News about the sale of property owned by Clark, including a Stradivarius violin and a Renoir painting.

To direct her $400 million fortune, at age 98 the heiress signed two wills.

The first will favored the relatives from her father's first marriage. They were not named: The will left the money to the "intestate distributees," legal language for the people who would inherit her money if she died without a will. (Clark had been married only briefly, and had no children.) And the will gave $5 million to the nurse, Peri.

Just six weeks passed before she signed a new will, cutting out the family, which claims that this will was the product of fraud. The new document  leaves the largest share of her money to a museum for her art collection in her oceanfront estate in Santa Barbara, Calif. Millions more (an estimated $27 million after taxes) and a doll collection will go to Peri, and lesser amounts to a godchild, the hospital, and doctor, as well as $500,000 each to the attorney and accountant. (See the earlier story and read the documents: A twist: Heiress Huguette Clark signed two wills.)

The $400 million heavyweight battle over the wills is about to begin, with the $44 million in gifts providing the preliminary bout.

Clark's jewelry collection sold in April for $18.3 million. That money will be held by the estate during the contest over the wills. Her three apartments overlooking Central Park and Fifth Avenue, a total of 15,000 square feet, are on the market for $55 million; one of the three has found a buyer. Her country estate in New Canaan, Conn., is for sale for $17 million. Her $100 million estate in Santa Barbara, which the Clarks had not visited for half a century, is being carefully maintained, awaiting the court's decision on the will's plan for an art museum.

A twist: If the executor is successful in recovering for the estate millions from the nurse, doctor, hospital, attorney and accountant, and if the second of Clark's written wills is the one to be upheld, those same millions can then be paid out to the beneficiaries, including the nurse, doctor, hospital, attorney and accountant.

The full story
More on the Huguette Clark mystery is at http://clark.msnbc.com/.

Do you have information on the Clark family?
Reporter Bill Dedman is co-authoring "Empty Mansions," a nonfiction book about the Clark family. If you have documents or information, you can reach him at bill.dedman@msnbc.com.

 

Judicial Watch has released hundreds of Defense Department and CIA communications that reveal the Obama administration leaked classified information to filmmakers on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Judicial Watch claims the secrets were provided for a film on the bin Laden raid that was first scheduled to be released Oct. 12, just in time to boost the president's image shortly before the November elections. Sony Pictures has since pushed the release back to December.

According to the documents, the filmmakers were granted access to a Navy SEAL captain who was the "planner, operator and commander of SEAL Team Six," which killed bin Laden.  In one memo one of the filmmakers says he had a "good meeting with Brennan and McDonough" and says "they were forward leaning, sharing their point of view on command and control."

---

John Brennan is the president's chief counterterrorism adviser, and Denis McDonough is deputy national security adviser.

In putting the filmmakers together with the SEAL Team Six commander on the raid, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers writes in one document, "The only thing I ask is that you not reveal his name in any way ... because he shouldn't be talking out of school." 

The filmmakers include Kathryn Bigelow, Academy Award-winning director of "The Hurt Locker," and screenwriter Mark Boal.

Pentagon Press Secretary George Little told NBC News on Tuesday that the Defense Department and other agencies regularly engage with the entertainment industry to inform book and movie projects.

"Many individuals in the industry expressed interest in developing projects on what can only be described as one of the top intelligence and military successes of a generation," Little said. "Our engagement on these projects was driven by a desire to inform the public, not by timing."

Judicial Watch, a self-described "conservative, non-partisan educational foundation" that often points out federal spending that it believes is suspect, obtained the documents through the Freedom of Information Act.

Jim Miklaszewski is the chief Pentagon correspondent for NBC News; Courtney Kube is Pentagon producer.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• 'Lucky' teen plucked from waterfall credits rescuers, Pendragon book
• Motorcycle deaths stay at same level despite overall safer roads
• Video: 911 dispatcher caught snoring as woman pleads for help
• Grandmother allegedly shoots grandson eight times
• Could you be sued for texting with a driver? Experts say, 'maybe'

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

A report released Tuesday by the Governors Highway Safety Association finds that no progress was made in reducing motorcyclist deaths in 2011, even as overall highway traffic deaths declined.

Based upon preliminary data for the first nine months of the year, from 50 states and the District of Columbia, GHSA projects that motorcycle fatalities remained at about 4,500 in 2011, the same level as 2010.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration projected that overall motor vehicle fatalities declined 1.7 percent in 2011, reaching their lowest level since 1949.

---

Motorcycle deaths remain one of the few areas in highway safety where progress is not being made.

"It is disappointing that we are not making progress in motorcycle safety," said GHSA Chairman Troy Costales in a statement, "particularly as fatalities involving other motorists continue to decline. As the study notes, the strengthening economy, high gas prices, and the lack of all-rider helmet laws leave me concerned about the final numbers for 2011 and 2012. Every motorcyclist deserves to arrive at their destination safely. These fatality figures represent real people – they’re family, friends and neighbors."

Comparing the first nine months of 2010 with 2011, motorcyclist fatalities decreased in 23 states, with notable declines in many.

On the other hand, 26 states and the District Columbia showed an increase in motorcyclist deaths.

The economy influences motorcycle travel in several ways. With the economy improving in 2011 and furthering strengthening in 2012, more people will have disposable income for purchasing and riding motorcycles. At the same time, rising gas prices may cause more people to choose motorcycles for transportation because of their fuel efficiency.

The Governors Highway Safety Association is a nonprofit association representing the highway safety offices of states, territories, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

The full report is available here.

Could you be blamed for a car crash because you sent a text message? 

A New Jersey judge will decide later this week if the sender of a text message might be partially liable for a horrific auto accident that occurred because the driver was reading that message on his cell phone and drifted into oncoming traffic.

With nearly half a million U.S. drivers injured in distracted driving-related accidents every year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the judge’s decision could have wide-ranging impact in both the legal and digital realms.

While it might seem absurd to blame someone who isn't even in the car -- or anywhere near it -- for causing an accident, some legal experts say the plaintiff is on firmer ground than you might think.

---

Skippy Weinstein, a Morristown-based lawyer, is using similar logic to press the case he filed on behalf of David and Linda Kuber. Both Kubers lost their legs during a 2009 crash in Mine Hill, N.J., after 19-year-old Kyle Best sideswiped their car when driving while texting. Weinstein said Shannon Colonna, who was texting with Best, should also be held responsible for the Kubers’ injuries.

"She was not physically in the vehicle but she was electronically present," Weinstein told msnbc.com. "She and he were assisting each other in a violation of the law."

That word "assisting" is at the crux of Weinstein's novel legal argument. 

Most readers will be familiar with the notion of "aiding and abetting" a criminal act and the guilt it brings: the man who knowingly holds the door for the gang is just likely to be convicted of bank robbery as the safe cracker.

More recently, this notion of aiding and abetting has been extended to civil liability cases, too, creating a basis for what's sometimes called "secondary" or "vicarious" liability. For the past two decades, most civil aiding and abetting cases have been limited to investment and securities fraud: An aggrieved investor might not only sue Bernie Madoff for stealing his money, for example, but also go after a third-party broker who repeatedly executed trades for Madoff. Even if the trader wasn't profiting from the scheme or part of a "joint enterprise,“ a court might find the trader provided assistance to Madoff, and should have known that someone was likely be injured by his actions.

The aiding and abetting argument in injuries that give rise to lawsuits, known as "torts," is only beginning to find its way into other kinds of civil cases.

There's a simple three-pronged test to prove someone is partly to blame for causing an injury by aiding and abetting someone else. It is set out in the Restatement of Torts published by the American Law Institute, which guides most civil courtrooms:

1) The party the defendant assists must do a wrongful act;

2) The party must be generally aware of his or her role in the illegal or "tortuous" act;

3) The party must "substantially assist" in the principal violation.

Weinstein think his argument is easy to make. The driver violated the law by texting while driving. Colonna, the text sender, should have known that Best was driving home from work and had to know texting while driving was a violation, he said. Therefore, it's hard to argue that a text sender isn't substantially assisting in the creation of a text message conversation that violates New Jersey's driving laws.

"That very comfortably satisfies the third prong of the legal test," he said.

Colonna’s lawyer, Joseph McGlone, doesn't think the argument has any merit, and has asked Morris County Superior Court Judge David Rand to dismiss the case. Rand is scheduled to rule this week on McGlone’s motion to dismiss the case.

The sender of a text message has no way to control or predict when the recipient will read it, McGlone argues.

"The sender of the text has the right to assume the recipient will read it at a safe time,” McGlone told the local Daily Record  newspaper. “It’s not fair. It’s not reasonable. Shannon Colonna has no way to control when Kyle Best is going to read that message."

He added that there is no precedent for heaping liability on a person on the other side of a text message conversation that causes injury.

Of course, there's no precedent for a lot of legal areas in the Digital Age. In situations like this, judges usually turn to analogies. In driving injury cases, the judge has a bushel full to choose from.

For starters, it's hard to tag liability on anyone who isn't holding the steering wheel of the car while an accident occurs. Lawyers around the nation have repeatedly tried and failed to make passengers partly responsible for accidents caused by drunken drivers when passengers knowingly get into a car with an intoxicated driver.

There are exceptions, however. A South Carolina court has said a passenger could be judged a "proximate cause" of an injury if the driver and passenger were in some kind of "joint enterprise," such as the passenger steering the car while the driver presses the gas pedal.

Passengers who have directly encouraged drivers to break the law -- by urging them to speed excessively or to drive in the oncoming lane as part of a game, for example -- have also been found liable, Weinstein says.

But to find a passenger liable, the South Carolina court said, "The passenger must have an equal right to control the direction and management of the vehicle." It seems hard to argue that a text message sender has equal ability to control the vehicle as the driver does.

But there are plenty of other situations where someone other than the driver has to pay after an injury accident, an extension of liability called “imputed negligence.” The most common is when the driver is "an agent" of someone else -- when a pizza delivery man driving for work causes an accident, his employer is liable.  Parents are often liable for accidents their children cause if they kids are directly under their care. 

There's also concept called "negligent entrustment": if you knowingly let an unlicensed driver take your auto out for a spin, you will probably be liable for an accident he or she causes. 

Neither of those cases fit this situation well, however. So Weinstein has settled on a simpler analogy.

"If she was in the vehicle and put her hands over his eyes so he couldn't see, she would be liable," he said. "(Texting with him) is as if she put her hands over his eyes."

Is texting the digital equivalent of willfully rendering someone blind? To even make that argument, and to press on with the aiding and abetting claim, Weinstein has to persuade the judge that Colonna knew that Best was texting while driving. Colonna's lawyers are contesting that point, but Weinstein says the pattern of texts between boyfriend and girlfriend make clear that she must have known he was on his way home from work.

But even if he fails on that argument, it's easy to imagine other lawsuits where evidence of knowledge by the sender could be hard to deny. A driver might directly text, "Hey, I'm driving home," for example.

That would make a big difference in a case like this, said Robert Mitchell, a Utah-based lawyer and author of a recent article on aiding and abetting claims.

"If there is conclusive evidence that the person sending the text messages to the driver knew the driver was texting while driving, we see no reason why a claim for aiding and abetting the driver’s negligent or reckless conduct could not be made. The case is probably weaker if there is no evidence of actual knowledge, but only evidence of ‘constructive knowledge,’" said Mitchell, referring to a concept that the sender "should have known" the recipient was driving. "Courts disagree over whether constructive knowledge is sufficient to give rise to aiding and abetting liability."

Courts have found that the contribution by this third party in aiding and abetting cases can't be slight – it must be “significant.” For example, giving directions to the bank robber probably wouldn’t be substantial enough to get you prosecuted, but telling him what time security guard shifts change could be. And, as with most civil liability cases, the harm caused by the action doesn't have to be intentional.

Mitchell said this is the critical phrase in the American Law Institute's guidelines.

"If the encouragement or assistance is a substantial factor in causing the resulting tort, the one giving it is himself a tortfeasor and is responsible for the consequences of the other’s act. This is true both when the act done is (intentional) and when it is merely (negligent)," Mitchell wrote in his review, quoting the guidelines with added parenthesis. In fact, liability exists even if the third-party has no idea he or she is doing something illegal or negligent.

So in Mitchell’s view, it's a relatively easy to argue that the texter "substantially assisted" the driver in causing the accident. 

"The third prong, substantial assistance, would be an easier hurdle to clear (than knowledge) since sending somebody a text message while driving distracts the driver and that distraction may ultimately cause the accident," he said.  "Of course defenses may include superseding or intervening causes to the underlying tort (the first prong), like bad weather, poor road conditions or visibility, avoiding someone or something on the road."

Not all experts agree, however. Maryland-based lawyer Bradley Shear, an expert in digital law, openly fretted about how far liability might extend if Weinstein is successful in his novel legal argument.

"What if someone is hopping on a boat, and they look down at a text, slip and drown? What if a doctor gets a text before a surgery that upsets him and he makes a mistake? Is the sender responsible?" he said. "If you start going down that route where are you going to draw the line?"

Mark Rasch, for head of the Justice Department’s Computer Crimes Unit, said he thinks the case will boil down simply into this question: Can anyone really prove that the sender of the text, Colonna, knew that Best would read it while driving? Absent such proof, there is no case, he says.

But he was concerned with the larger issue of extending liability through digital means.

“The real question here is, do we as a society want to impose a duty on the non-driving texter for accidents that happen when a recipient is driving?” he said. “For now, it seems a reasonable place to draw the line at this: The person driving has a duty not to text. And the person on other end of line has no duty unless there are special circumstances.”

One special circumstance he envisioned: A boss or other person in a position of power who received a message from an employee saying, “I can’t text, I’m driving,” but continued to send demanding texts with an implied threat if they weren’t answered quickly.

“The person in the position of authority might have liability then,” said Rasch, now a cybersecurity consultant with Virginia-based CSC Inc.

Complicating matters, juries can apportion liability, and theoretically could find a driver 90 percent responsible and the sender of a text 10 percent responsible. Damages can be similarly apportioned, although the realities of collections means the party with the deepest pockets usually pays the most in damages.

It’s also possible that Congress or state legislatures might create a chain of liability, as states have done with dram shop laws, which make bars liable for injuries and damages caused by patron who are served after they’re drunk.

For his part, Weinstein demurs when asked if he's trying to set an important legal precedent or make law. He's just trying to win a case for his client, he said.

"The defense ... wants to make this into a cause celebre, but this is not complicated," he said. "A jury may find I'm wrong and thrown me out on my duff. ... All I'm saying is don't (text) while driving, and don't assist someone else in texting while driving."

*Follow Bob Sullivan on Facebook.
*Follow Bob Sullivan on Twitter. 

 

A terror attack Monday on a Yemeni military parade rehearsal that killed scores occurred amid increasing cooperation between the Yemen and U.S. governments, with the latter stepping up assistance to the Yemeni military and regularly targeting purported terrorist cells with drone strikes.

The cooperation reflects a growing  belief in U.S. national security circles that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemeni al-Qaida affiliate, is now a bigger and more dangerous threat than the central al-Qaida group in Pakistan. (AQAP on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack on the military parade and a shooting that targeted U.S. military trainers in the country. There were apparently no injuries in the second incident.)

The cooperation is not limited to counter-terrorism. The U.S. is openly helping the new Yemeni government in counterinsurgency efforts against an AQAP-affiliated group, Ansar al-Sharia, in the south of the country.  The assistance includes “a small contingent” of military trainers and intelligence officers assisting the Yemeni forces.

---

The presence of the American personnel in Yemen is raising concerns that Washington risks opening another front in the war against al-Qaida before it has fully extricated itself from long, bloody conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said the AQAP’s successes in recent months give Washington little choice but to increase support for the new Yemeni government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

“AQAP’s enhanced footprint in southern Yemen increases the chances that the group will establish a regional safe haven,” said the official. “This would be a dangerous development because AQAP’s anti-government fight and its terrorist plotting against the West are its two main goals. Unless its gains are reversed, AQAP will have more flexibility to conduct external attacks from a position of strength.”

The Yemeni government position is about survival. Like Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, Yemen is under new management, after former President Ali Abdullah al-Saleh’s replacement by Hadi, his former deputy, in February.

Hadi’s position is precarious. Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamist insurgent group, is trying to further destabilize the water-starved, tribal-riven state, with the ultimate goal of toppling his government.

Related story

'Massacre" as suicide bomber targets military parade rehearsal in Yemen

But Hadi’s  increasing reliance on U.S. help has likewise caused him some difficulties, triggering protests among middle- and upper middle-class Yemeni youth who are resentful over the U.S. role in the country, particularly the drone strikes and surveillance.

Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counter Terrorism Center and now an NBC News analyst, said the deaths of nearly 100 Yemeni soldiers in Monday’s bombing are likely to bring two countries’ counter terrorism efforts closer.

“Hadi's rise has probably brought greater legitimacy to cooperation with the U.S.,” said Leiter. “… The president (Hadi) and elements of the security and defense establishment cooperate with the U.S. but want to keep that relatively quiet in order to avoid enflaming the domestic population.  .. . And, frankly, with horrific attacks like today, U.S. assistance often becomes more rather than less welcome.”

A Yemeni official, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak with the press on security operations, contended that  “broad cooperation” with the U.S. is necessary and marks a “new level” of friendly relations between the two countries. He said the U.S. role in Yemen is limited in terms of numbers, but significant in helping the government turn back Ansar al-Sharia, which he characterized as “militants, drug dealers and foreign groups.”

'Intelligence, satellite images and technical advice'
“The U.S. is providing intelligence information, satellite images and technical advice” valuable in both  counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts, said the official. Both the U.S. intelligence community and the Joint Special Operations Command, JSOC, are involved. He emphasized there are “no boots on the ground” fighting with Yemeni forces.

Neither the U.S. nor Yemeni official would put numbers on the U.S. involvement. Nor would the Yemeni  deny the presence of CIA officers on the ground.

The most high profile product of this cooperation has been the drone attacks on both counterterrorism and counterinsurgency targets. High profile attacks have killed three top AQAP officials in the past eight months, but there also have been an increasing number of attacks on lesser figures and even suspected gatherings of terrorists. The attacks, said the Yemeni official, have taken place “all over the country.”

In September, apparently helped by material uncovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, U.S. drones killed two American citizens in Kashef, about 85 miles east of the capital, Sanaa. The dead were Anwar al-Awlaki, an AQAP leader blamed for recruiting other Americans to the group’s violent cause, and Samir Khan, co-editor of “Inspire,” a magazine whose articles included “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”

Then, earlier this month, the director of AQAP’s external operations, Fahd al Quso, was similarly killed by a drone attack in a remote mountain valley -- his whereabouts reportedly exposed by a British-Saudi-U.S. undercover intelligence operation. The penetration of AQAP by an informant  also resulted in the interception of a new, more sophisticated  version of the underwear bomb previously used unsuccessfully  to try to down U.S. airliners. (Yemeni intelligence, said the Yemeni official, had “no role” in that operation and was unaware of it.)

By some estimates, the tempo of the drone strikes against AQAP and Ansar al-Sharia is now even greater than in Pakistan, with the number of attacks in May surpassing even the most intense month of attacks against al-Qaida central in Pakistan. According to the “Long War Journal” website, which uses local reporting to track Predator strikes, 30 AQAP fighters (and seven civilians) have been killed in five drone strikes in the past 10 days alone. (Both U.S. and Yemeni officials say that such local reports are often inaccurate or exaggerated.)

The larger concern in terms of U.S. involvement may be the counterinsurgency effort. The Los Angeles Times reported  last week that at least 20 U.S. Special Operations troops are using satellite imagery, drone video, eavesdropping systems and other technical means to help pinpoint targets for the Yemeni military offensive that’s currently under way in the south. 

The Yemeni official would only say that targeting is “very selective” and that “No Americans are fighting on the side of the Yemenis,” a point on which U.S. officials agree.

While the Yemeni official said the offensive has made great strides recently, there have been setbacks, including the killing of 32 Yemeni soldiers on May 7 when AQAP overran a Yemeni position. That was the deadliest single encounter for government forces in the war with AQAP until Monday’s attack.

The Yemeni official said that the public is supportive of both operations, despite a social media protest by the country’s youth that has drawn some attention.

He claimed that no civilians have been killed in the drone strikes and stated that that care has been taken to strike at times and places where only AQAP and its allies are present.

There’s no doubt that U.S. cooperation -- and the drone strikes—will continue. The U.S. wants to kill Ibrihim Hassan Al-Asiri, the AQAP’s expert bomb-maker, before he trains others in his craft. 

But the mere presence of U.S. military personnel in the country carries risk of a confrontation that could quickly escalate. This weekend, for example, a local Yemeni newspaper reported unidentified gunmen opened fire on a car that belonged to U.S. military trainers as they left the tourist al-Hodeida Land Resort in the western part of the country. None of the Americans were believed to have been injured.

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Pakistan blocks Twitter -- but fails to stop tweets
• NATO summit prompts little buzz on streets of Kabul
• Chinese fishermen held by North Korea released
• US student dies after going swimming at Scottish beach
• Olympic torchbearers race to cash in
• A random act of kindness lifts spirits in London

 

 

The Washington Post has an excellent look at visits by lobbyists to senior officials in the Obama administration, based on White House visitor records. An excerpt:

More than any president before him, Obama pledged to change the political culture that has fueled the influence of lobbyists. He barred recent lobbyists from joining his administration and banned them from advisory boards throughout the executive branch. The president went so far as to forbid what had been staples of political interaction — federal employees could no longer accept free admission to receptions and conferences sponsored by lobbying groups.

"A lot of folks," Obama said last month, "see the amounts of money that are being spent and the special interests that dominate and the lobbyists that always have access, and they say to themselves, maybe I don’t count."

The White House visitor records make it clear that Obama’s senior officials are granting that access to some of K Street’s most influential representatives. In many cases, those lobbyists have long-standing connections to the president or his aides. Republican lobbyists coming to visit are rare, while Democratic lobbyists are common, whether they are representing corporate clients or liberal causes. 

Is lobbying greater under Obama than under his predecessors? It's impossible to know, because President Obama is the first president to release records of White House visitors. Score one for transparency, and score one for the lobbyists, too.

You may recall that msnbc.com covered the issue of White House visitor logs, pressing repeatedly for the White House to release all the records. That still hasn't happened. Records of visitors for the first eight months of the Obama presidency have not been released.

---

Here's the Post story, by reporter T.W. Farnam 

 

You can search for names of visitors

The Obama administration released records to settle a lawsuit, and another lawsuit is pending to try to force the White House to release all the records. The president's attorneys continue to make the claim, as previous administrations had made, that the records are not covered under the Freedom of Information Act, despite two federal court decisions calling for all the records to be released. So the disclosures made so far are, in the White House view, voluntary. Presumed Republican nominee Mitt Romney has not said whether he will release White House visitor logs.

Stories in our msnbc.com series on the White House visitor logs:

• Obama blocks list of visitors to White House
• After lawsuit, Obama opens a bit of info on meetings with health care executives.
• Obama yields on most White House visitor logs
• Help figure out who has been lobbying Obama
• Obama names 110 White House visitors
• Obama is sued for White House visitor list

When Nicholas Adrian Revetta of suburban Pittsburgh died in an explosion at a U.S. Steel plant on Sept. 3, 2009, his death did not make national headlines. No hearings were held into the accident that killed him. No one was fired or sent to jail.           

The 32-year-old contract laborer, who left behind a wife and two young children, was one of the 4,551 people killed on the job in America in 2009 -- a number that eclipsed the total number of U.S. fatalities in the nine-year Iraq war. Combined with the estimated 50,000 people who die annually of work-related diseases, it's as if a fully loaded Boeing 737-700 crashed every day.

---

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 entitles American workers to "safe and healthful" conditions in their workplaces. But an examination of Revetta's death by the Center for Public Integrity illustrates how safety can yield to speed, how even fatal accidents can have few consequences for employers -- who are typically fined just $7,900 per fatality -- and how federal investigations can be cut short by what some call a de facto quota system.  

Click here to read the rest of the story.

 

Prosecutors on Thursday made public a trove of evidence used to justify murder charges against Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, including a police report that concluded "the encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman."

The evidence – including 183 pages of documents, witness statements and other material – was released Thursday to news organizations and other requestors by special prosecutor Angela Corey’s office, which has charged the 28-year-old Zimmerman with second-degree murder in the killing of 17-year-old Martin on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla. Also included was a document explaining what material was withheld.

---

The evidence, which was provided to Zimmerman’s attorney early this week, will be helpful to both prosecutors and the defense.

An autopsy by the Volusia County Medical Examiner on Martin's body found that the teenager was killed by a shot to the heart and that traces of THC -- or tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana -- were found in Martin's blood, though below the level that medical studies indicate would have caused "performance impairment."

But the documents give contradictory assessments of how far away Zimmerman was when he shot Martin. 

Lab tests by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Orlando operations center concluded that residue tests on Martin's sweatshirt were "consistent with a contact shot" — that is, one in which the muzzle of the weapon is physically touching the victim.

But the autopsy report from the Volusia County (Fla.) Medical Examiner's office reached a different conclusion based on examination of the wound itself, saying, "This wound is consistent with a wound of entrance of intermediate range."

The report doesn't define "intermediate range."

In another report, a police officer responding to the shooting said that after Zimmerman was handcuffed, he saw “that his back appeared to be wet and was covered with grass,” and that he had suffered a bloody nose – consistent with Zimmerman’s account that he was attacked by Martin.

A photo showing Zimmerman's bloodied head also is included in the report, as is a paramedic’s reports saying that he had a 1-inch laceration on his head and forehead abrasion.

"Bleeding tenderness to his nose, and a small laceration to the back of his head. All injuries have minor bleeding," paramedic Michael Brandy wrote about Zimmerman's injuries.

Another police report indicated that Zimmerman, who is white and of Hispanic heritage, had called Sanford police on at least four previous occasions while residing in the Retreat at Twin Lakes gated community in Sanford, and in each case the “suspicious person” was a black male.

“Investigation reveals that on Aug. 4, Aug. 5 and Oct. 6, 2011, and on Feb. 2, 2012, George Zimmerman reported suspicious persons – all young black males – in the Retreat neighborhood to Sanford Police Department,” it said. “According to records checks, all of Zimmerman’s suspicious persons calls while residing in the Retreat neighborhood have identified black males as the subjects.”

Zimmerman himself was on a prescription for Tamazepam, according to the paramedic's incident report reproducing his medical records. (Tamazepam is also known as Restoril and is prescribed for anxiety and insomnia.) 

Read the police reports and other documentary evidence 

Read what was excluded from the release and the reasons it was withheld 

Another police report  indicated that Sanford police thought Zimmerman was at fault, even though they let him go after questioning him.  

"Investigation reveals that Martin was in fact running generally in the direction of where he was staying as a guest in the neighborhood," it said.

An eight-page summary of the evidence against Zimmerman released earlier this week listed 50 possible law enforcement witnesses -- including 18 Sanford police officers as primary witnesses, including lead Investigator Chris Serino -- and 28 civilian witnesses, including Martin's brother, mother and father, Zimmerman’s father and two of his friends . Twenty-two other potential civilian witnesses were not identified. 

Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O'Mara, acknowledged receiving the materials Monday on a website his office set up to release information from the case Zimmerman's, but said, "Please remember and understand that it is inappropriate for us to comment on particular pieces of evidence."

Zimmerman shot Martin during a confrontation inside the Retreat at Twin Lakes  community, while the teenager was visiting his father’s fiancée.

The shooting came after Zimmerman called 911 reporting that Martin was acting suspiciously, as if he was on drugs. He later told police that he shot Martin in self-defense, after Martin punched him and pushed him to the ground.

Police initially failed to arrest Zimmerman or charge him with any crime because Florida's Stand Your Ground self-defense law allows the use of deadly force whenever someone feels threatened with serious bodily injury.

But after questions about possible racial motivation for the slaying, a special prosecutor took over the case and, on April 11, Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder. Zimmerman, who pleaded not guilty to the charge, was released on April 23 on a $150,000 bond and has been out of the public eye since then.

Msnbc.com's Mike Brunker, Bill Dedman and M. Alex Johnson, NBC News producer Tom Winter and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Chicago braces for major protests as NATO summit looms
• 'Green Team' kids urge Crayola to recycle plastic markers
• Estranged Kennedy wife died from hanging
• Video: 250-pound alligator chomps man's arm
• Immigration decision a plus for Klezmer tango band

Florida teenager Trayvon Martin died from a single gunshot wound to the chest fired from “intermediate range,” according to an autopsy report reviewed Wednesday by NBC News.

The official report, prepared by the medical examiner in Volusia County, Fla., also found that the 17-year-old Martin had one other fresh injury – a small abrasion, no more than a quarter-inch  in size –  on his left ring finger below the knuckle.

---

Separately, a medical report on Martin’s alleged killer, 28-year-old George Zimmerman, prepared by his personal physician the day after Martin’s shooting in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26, found that the Neighborhood Watch volunteer suffered a likely broken nose, swelling, two black eyes and cuts to the scalp. That report, first reported Tuesday by ABC News, also was reviewed by NBC News.

Both documents are part of a mountain of evidence – up to 300 pages and 67 CDs of witness statements, surveillance videos and other material-- expected to be made public soon in connection with the second-degree murder case against Zimmerman.

Zimmerman allegedly shot Martin during a confrontation inside the gated community in Sanford where Zimmerman was a neighborhood volunteer and where Martin was visiting his father’s fiancée.

After first reporting a suspicious person in the neighborhood in a phone call to Sanford police, Zimmerman followed the teenager before a fatal confrontation that remains shrouded in mystery.

Related coverage:

NYT: Police missteps shadow Trayvon Martin case

Physician: Zimmerman had broken nose, black eyes

Key events in the Trayvon Martin case

When police arrived at the scene to find Martin dead on the sidewalk, Zimmerman claimed he shot the teen in self-defense. Zimmerman was treated at the scene for cuts and a bloody nose, then questioned by police for hours before being released without being arrested. Authorities said at the time that they had no evidence challenging Zimmerman's account and that his conduct appeared to be justified under Florida's so-called Stand Your Ground law.

But after questions about possible racial motivation for the slaying – Martin was black; Zimmerman is a white man of Hispanic heritage – a special prosecutor took over the case and, on April 11, Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder. He was released on April 23 on a $150,000 bond and has been out of the public eye since then.

NBC News National Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff and msnbc.com's Mike Brunker contributed to this report.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Terror case: Family wins $323 million from Iran, Syria
• Hawaii first state to ban plastic bags at checkout
• Veterans to return war medals in protest
• 'Mama bear' sued by church over online criticism
• Trio lured Marine wife to her death, prosecutors say
• Video: Dad of sole plane crash survivor: It's a miracle

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

This spring, the editorial board at the Columbia Human Rights Law Review dedicated its final issue of the year to one article about two men named Carlos. Carlos DeLuna, the authors believe, was executed in Texas for a crime committed by Carlos Hernandez, who looked so much like him that one of their sisters confused the two in a photograph.

"Los Tocayos Carlos," which runs 451 pages and is available for free online, details the stabbing death of Wanda Lopez, a 24-year-old assistant manager at a gas station in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The article, which took six years, one professor and 12 students to produce, reads like a true-crime novel. It begins: “Wanda Lopez died at work at a Sigmor Shamrock gas station in Corpus Christi, Texas on February 4, 1983. She was twenty-four. Wanda’s only brother, Richard Vargas, heard her say her last words, but they gave him no solace or peace. They just made him angry.^”

---

There were two Carloses in the vicinity that night. An eye witness to the crime identified Carlos DeLuna as the man who had wrestled with Wanda Lopez, even though his clothes did not match the witness' original description.  

The law school team interviewed Carlos Hernandez's relatives, who revealed that on the day of the murder, before Carlos DeLuna was arrested, he told them that he had killed a woman named Wanda and that he felt badly about it. He said he didn't think he'd get caught.

Hernandez later told someone else that he had committed the murder and that "Carlos DeLuna took the fall."

Police told the Columbia investigators that Carlos DeLuna didn't have it in him to commit such a crime. DeLuna, a junior high drop out, had a low IQ and had been arrested for low-level crimes but was better known for huffing paint. Carlos Hernandez, by contrast, had raped children in the neighborhood and had been arrested for assaulting his wife with an ax handle, according to the Columbia University report.

Questioning how Carlos Hernandez, with his reputation, could have avoided scrutiny, the law school students and their professor discovered that Hernandez had been a police informant.

But not all police officers liked Carlos Hernandez -- their informants reported to them that Hernandez might have been to blame for other unsolved murders of Latina women.

California voters to consider ending capital punishment

The law school team strongly suggests that the case, beginning with Wanda Lopez's call to 911, was sloppily handled. A novice dispatcher took too long to send out a patrol car to the gas station where Wanda Lopez was knifed; the crime scene was immediately cleaned; investigators relied on one eye witness account.   

Years down the road, the state assigned DeLuna an attorney who had never tried a major case in court, but who landed the job, the law school team suggests, because his father was politically connected.

In 1989, Carlos DeLuna was executed by lethal injection. His tocayo, or namesake, Carlos Hernandez, died in jail in 1999.

California vote could remove one quarter of nation's death row

In the introduction, the authors write: “Los Tocayos Carolos poignantly reveals how easily our legal system can fail to produce just outcomes even without the deliberate interference of individuals acting in bad faith and how the consequences of such failures can be irrevocable and at times, fatal.”

Columbia Law Professor James S. Liebman told the Guardian that what struck him most as he conducted his research was that the story was mundane.

"This wasn't the trial of OJ Simpson,” Liebman said. “It was an obscure case, the kind that could involve anybody. Maybe those are the cases where miscarriages of justice happen, the routine everyday cases where nobody thinks enough about the victim, let alone the defendant."

Watch the most-viewed videos on msnbc.com

The Columbia Human Rights Review piece recalls work by Northwestern University Professor David Protess and his students to exonerate innocent death row inmates. In 2000, Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on Illinois’ death penalty.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Hawaii first state to ban plastic bags at checkout
• Veterans to return war medals in protest
• 'Mama bear' sued by church over online criticism
• Trio lured Marine wife to her death, prosecutors say
• Video: Dad of sole plane crash survivor: It's a miracle

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

Editor's note: A correction had been made to this article. Click here to view it:

Fugitive al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has released a new audio message about Yemen at a time of escalating fighting in the country that one Yemeni official on Tuesday described as "all-out war."

The release of the audio comes just two days after White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan visited the Yemeni capital of Sanaa to meet with its new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to discuss ramping up the battle against al-Qaida affiliated militants who now control large swaths of the country's southern region.

---

While there is still no public translation of the new Zawahiri audio message, a U.S. government official familiar with the contents tells NBC News it was clearly recorded before the news broke last week about a foiled plot to blow up a U.S. airliner with more-sophisticated underwear bomb.

The message discusses the transition from exiled former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to Hadi, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Watch world news videos on msnbc.com

NBC News terror analyst Evan Kohlmann notes that there is typically a two- to three-week lapse between the events described in Zawahiri’s messages and their public release.  (Kohlmann's Flashpoint Intel service is working to translate the message, but he gives the title as, "Yemen: Between a Fugitive Puppet and a Collaborating Stooge," apparent references to Saleh and Hadi.)

Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in the 'Isikoff Files'

Over the past week and a half, Yemeni forces -- backed by U.S. military trainers and drone strikes -- have dramatically escalated their attacks on al-Qaida militants in the south.

A Yemen government official estimated as many as 20,000 troops were now involved in the battle, supported by approximately 50 to 60 U.S. trainers.

"We have begun to reintroduce small numbers of trainers into Yemen," a Pentagon spokesman, a Navy Capt. John Kirby, told reporters this week. 

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Iranians already feeling pain of sanctions
• EU forces attack Somali pirates on land for first time
• Aussie Olympic hopeful loses bet over 'mankini' at opening ceremony
• Hipsters to the rescue? UK celebrity venue in spat with Jaguar
• Vatican allows mobster to be exhumed for clues in disappearance
• Iran hangs ‘Israel spy’ over nuclear scientist killing
• Mexico's drug war: No sign of 'light at the end of the tunnel'