US Navy – Over the Arabian Sea, on patrol with US Navy P-3C Orions, looking for Al-Qaida members trying to flee Afghanistan by ship.

• Associated Press: U.S. Planes Scour Sea for Al-Qaida

US Marines – What the Taliban’s caves looked like to the US Marines searching them.

• Associated Press: Marines Reveal Items From Al-Qaida

US Navy – The USS Peleliu amphibious ready group will take a shore leave in Australia.

• The Australian: Hicks’s ship to dock in WA
  

Background – Saudi Arabia – Has the time come for the US to leave Saudi Arabia?

• The Economist: Time to move on

Background – Cryptography – Why and how the balance of power has shifted between the codemakers and the codebreakers – and the national security implications of this.

• The Atlantic: Losing the Code War