Dina Temple-Raston

Adding to the coverage of NPR's national security team, Dina Temple-Raston reports about counterterrorism at home and abroad for NPR News. Her reporting can be heard on NPR's newsmagazines. She joined NPR in March 2007 fresh from a two year sabbatical in which she completed two books, learned Arabic and received a Master's Degree from Columbia.

A long-time foreign correspondent for Bloomberg News in Asia, Temple-Raston opened Bloomberg's Shanghai and Hong Kong offices working for both Bloomberg's financial wire and radio operations. She also served as Bloomberg News' White House correspondent during both Clinton administrations and covered financial markets and economics for both USA Today and CNNfn.

Temple-Raston is an award-winning author. Her first book, entitled A Death in Texas and about race in America, won the Barnes' and Noble Discover Award and was chosen as one of the Washington Post's Best Books of 2002. Her second book, on the role Radio Mille Collines played in fomenting the Rwandan genocide, was a Foreign Affairs magazine bestseller. She has two books related to civil liberties and national security. The first, In Defense of Our America (HarperCollins) written with Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the ACLU, looks at civil liberties in post-9/11 America. The other, The Jihad Next Door (Public Affairs), is about the Lackawanna Six, America's first so-called "sleeper cell" and the issues that face Muslims in America.

Temple-Raston holds a Bachelor's degree from Northwestern University and a Master's degree from the Columbia University's School of Journalism. She was born in Belgium and French was her first language.

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National Security
12:03 am
Tue April 3, 2012

A Prosecutor Makes The Case For Military Trials

Credit Jim Watson / AFP/Getty Images
Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, graduated first in his class at West Point, studied as a Rhodes scholar, and attended Harvard Law School. Here he speaks during a press conference at the military facility on Jan 18. following a hearing against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the main suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000.

Originally published on Wed April 4, 2012 11:01 am

The chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is arguing a difficult case: that the commissions are not only fair, but can take pride of place alongside the civilian criminal justice system.

Brig. Gen. Mark Martins is the chief prosecutor for the commissions, the courts at the naval base that try high-profile terrorism suspects.

He has been called Guantanamo's detox man largely because he has made it his mission to show that the military commissions system at Guantanamo is no longer a toxic version of victor's justice.

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The Two-Way
9:01 pm
Sun April 1, 2012

Top Prosecutor At Guantanamo Military Commissions To Retire

Credit U.S. Central Command
Brig. Gen. Mark S. Martins.

NPR has learned that the top prosecutor at the Guantanamo Bay military commissions has asked to retire from the military after he finishes his assignment there.

Brig. Gen. Mark Martins says he hopes the decision will drain some of the politics out of the chief prosecutor's position and will provide some continuity.

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National Security
9:01 pm
Mon March 26, 2012

For U.S. Analysts, Rethinking The Terror Threat

Credit Joji Thomas / AP
U.S. officials are looking more closely for signs of state-sponsored terrorism these days. In this attack, Israel blamed Iran for bombing a car belonging to the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, India, on Feb. 13. The wife of an Israeli diplomat was injured. Iran denied it was involved.

There has been a subtle shift taking place in the intelligence community in recent months.

Intelligence and law enforcement officials say analysts and experts who have been tracking al-Qaida for more than a decade have been quietly reassigned. Some are being moved completely out of al-Qaida units. Others are being asked to spend less time watching al-Qaida and more time tracking more traditional foes — like state-sponsored terrorists.

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National Security
9:01 pm
Wed February 29, 2012

Officials Look For Signs Of Al-Qaida Surge In Syria

Credit AP
This frame grab from video provided by the SITE Intel Group shows al-Qaida's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri calling on Muslims to support rebels in Syria. The video was released earlier this month.

U.S. intelligence officials tracking the situation in Syria have their eye on one group in particular: al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq.

The group has longstanding ties to Syria, and its early members weren't just Iraqis; many of them were Syrians. The former leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, not only established a network of fighters in Syria, but he also folded them into his northern Iraqi faction of al-Qaida.

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National Security
12:29 pm
Fri February 24, 2012

Hezbollah Suspect May Face U.S. Military Commission

Credit Wsthiq Khuzaie / AP
U.S. Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner speaks in Baghdad in July 2007 near a poster of Ali Musa Daqduq. Daqduq was captured in Iraq in March 2007, and is accused of orchestrating the killings of five U.S. soldiers. The U.S. left Daqduq in Iraqi custody when U.S. troops formally withdrew in December. But the Obama administration is seeking to try him before a military commission.

The Obama administration is seeking to try a Lebanese man linked to Hezbollah in a military commission, expanding the reach of the military tribunal beyond al-Qaida and Taliban suspects for the first time.

The man at the center of the case is Ali Musa Daqduq. He was the last detainee held by American forces in Iraq and had been turned over to Iraqi custody when U.S. forces formally withdrew from Iraq in December.

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