Al Qaeda intercept challenges narrative of terror group 'on the run'

Reports that top-level communications among 20 Al Qaeda operatives prompted the ongoing security alert affecting U.S. embassies around the world have raised even more questions about the Obama administration's repeated claims that Al Qaeda is "on the run."
The assertion that Al Qaeda -- with the death of Usama bin Laden and of many of his lieutenants -- is a shell of its former self was a linchpin of the 2012 Obama campaign. Even with the ongoing security threat, the State Department insisted as recently as Tuesday that the...