In early May, officials with the C.I.A. reached out to Ali Soufan, a former F.B.I. agent who served as a lead investigator in the months before the September 11th attacks, to say they had learned that Al Qaeda militants were plotting against him. The officials asked Soufan not to disclose …

The July 2 explosion at a key Iranian nuclear facility was likely an attack organized by an external actor.

A Lebanese man convicted of financing Hezbollah was freed from jail in the US last month as a result of indirect contacts between Tehran and Washington that are expected to yield more releases, three senior Middle East officials told Reuters news agency.