By Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News Chief Pentagon Correspondent, and Courtney Kube, NBC News Producer

In a dangerous high-seas game of chicken, five Chinese boats harassed and came perilously close to colliding with a U.S. Naval surveillance ship off the coast of Hainan Island Sunday, after the Chinese military ordered the ship to leave the area or "suffer the consequences." The Navy dispatched a destroyer, the USS Chung-Hoon, to the vicinity as a precaution.

Pentagon and military officials tell NBC News the unarmed USNS Impeccable surveillance ship was "operating legally in international waters," towing an underwater sonar bouy, trolling for Chinese submarines when three Chinese military ships and two Chinese trawlers began to harass the American ship.

The five Chinese vessels first surrounded the Impeccable, and one Chinese ship passed dangerously close, within 25 feet, before the two trawlers pulled to a stop directly in front of the Impeccable which "came damned close to colliding" with the Chinese ships before making an emergency stop. The crew aboard one of the Chinese ships also used a grappling hook to try to snag the tow line that was dragging the sonar bouy through the water.

By Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News Chief Pentagon Correspondent

The U.S. and Russian navies joined forces today in the Gulf of Aden in an extraordinary and spontaneous display of counter-piracy cooperation and high-seas diplomacy. The U.S.-guided missile cruiser Vella Gulf and the Russian destroyer Admiral Vinogradov launched a coordinated military response to a distress call from a Panamanian cargo ship, which reported it was about to be attacked by pirates.

The U.S.-guided missile cruiser Vella Gulf, flagship for the Navy’s counter-piracy task force 151, was on pirate patrol in the northern gulf when it first encountered the Russian destroyer,
Admiral Vinogradov, which was providing armed escort for four civilian cargo ships through the notorious “Pirate Alley.” As the commander of the American task force, Rear Admiral Terry McKnight engaged in a “bridge-to-bridge” radio exchange of information and courtesies with the captain of the Russian warship, the crew on the Vella Gulf suddenly launched into action when the Panamanian ship called for help. Within minutes, the Captain of the Vella Gulf Mark Mark Genung called back to the Russians and asked for helicopter support to counter what sounded like a pirate attack.

By Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News Chief Pentagon Correspondent, and Courtney Kube, NBC News Producer

The Pentagon is prepared to announce the deployment of 17,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan as early as this week even as President Barack Obama is searching for his own strategy for the war. According to military officials during last week's meeting with Defense Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon's "tank," the president specifically asked, "What is the end game?" in the U.S. military's strategy for Afghanistan. When asked what the answer was, one military official told NBC News, "Frankly, we don't have one." But they're working on it.

Senior military officials confirm to NBC News that a secret report from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to President Obama recommends a shift in the military mission in Afghanistan to concentrate solely on combatting the Taliban and al-Qaida and leave the "hearts and minds" aspect of the war to other U.S. agencies and NATO.

The officials stress this strategy would NOT abandon the so-called "soft-side" of the war, to establish good governance, law enforcement, economics, education, etc., but instead hand those responsbilitities over to the State Justice, Agriculture departments and others. "This is a classic counnterinsurgency strategy, but the military can not do it alone."

By Evan Kohlmann, NBC News Terrorism Analyst

The sole surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks allegedly spent 18 months training at camps run by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a banned Pakistani militant organization with a long history of high-profile attacks in India and Indian-controlled Kashmir. And, as NBC News has reported, Indian authorities also have found the names of several high-ranking LET members in the satellite phone used by one of the Mumbai perpetrators.

So what is Lashkar-e-Taiba, and was the group truly behind the horrific attacks in Mumbai’s hotels, train station and restaurants? Lashkar’s political wing offered reporters in Pakistan a rare tour of their sprawling, 200-acre headquarters today, and allowed me to interview one of their top officials yesterday. In a phone interview, the LET’s Abdullah Muntazir repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks. “No, not at all,” said Muntazir, a chief spokesman of LET’s accused political wing, Jamat-ud-Dawa.

“The violence against the general public carried out by any individual, group, or any government--whether it is committed in Mumbai, or in Kashmir, Afghanistan, or in Iraq--that cannot be justified at any cost. And Islam does not allow its followers to kill innocent people, to target public places,” Muntazir said. “Blowing up [bombs] in public places… from my point of view, that we cannot endorse and we have no relation to such kind of things.” 

During the press tour today at the group’s headquarters outside Lahore, Muntazir continued with his denials. “We are a charity organization and these premises are just an educational and medical complex,” he said. “We condemn India for putting [our leader’s] name on the list of terrorists… India is blaming us because its their habit and the moment the attacks happened in Mumbai, they started blaming us without any proof or evidence,” Muntazir told reporters today.

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI today briefed building owners in the United States "regarding the tactics terrorists used in the attacks last week in Mumbai, India." The five-page "Intelligence and Analysis Note" said that the DHS and FBI "have no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." But it is important for building owners and operators "to be aware of potential attack tactics," the note said.

The DHS and FBI gathered details of the attack from open reports and "interrogations of a captured terrorist," the note said.  It ticked off many of the now well-reported details, including the use of boats to gain unfettered access to Mumbai and the "synchronized and coordinated" nature of the massacre.

But it also included some lesser known facts about the terrorist assault. The note said, for example, that the "attack planners used publicly available commercial imagery to plan the attack," such as satellite mapping of Mumbai. It added that while "at least 10 operatives" circumvented security by entering Mumbai from the sea, "others arrived in the city as many as four days prior to the attack."

The note said that the terrorists "were clean shaven and dressed in Western street clothing, possibly to blend in with the population" and that they entered the Taj Mahal Hotel through back alleys to surprise security guards. Once inside, they "moved continuously throughout the facilities." The constant movement "made it difficult for authorities to identify locations of attackers and hostages," the FBI and DHS wrote.

By Robert Windrem and Aram Roston, NBC News

Some U.S. and Indian counter-terrorism officials are asking if India’s most notorious reputed mobster -- thought to run a worldwide crime ring -- had a hand in the slaughter that devastated Mumbai last week.

His name is Dawood Ibrahim, a flashy gangster with alleged ties to contract hits, narcotics, gambling and even the film industry. Even more significantly, though, may be his alleged ties to al-Qaida and the terrorist group that's leading the list of suspects.

Ibrahim's international crime ring has been dubbed the "D-Gang" by the Indian press. In Mumbai, police have said for years that political and religious terrorism have been interwoven with crimes such as drugs, prostitution, gambling and contract hits. Indian newspapers ascribe legendary feats of criminality to the group.

Marie-Lou Fernandes was a Mumbai Deputy Police Commissioner until 2005, and tells NBC News that Dawood Ibrahim may not have been the instigator, but must have helped.

Although there's no evidence he was involved, Fernandes said," It appears to me there is only one person who could orchestrate that: Dawood Ibrahim. Everything is pointing to Dawood Ibrahim. He has the expertise and the resources."

Fernandes says she knew many of the officers killed in the attacks and lauds their performance. She said that Ibrahim is a likely participant. "Only an operative like Dawood would have been able to carry it out," Fernandes repeated.

Ibrahim, called a "crime lord" by the U.S. government, has been a fugitive for well over a decade. He was accused of orchestrating the 1993 bombings in Mumbai, which killed more than 250 people. In that case, munitions for the attack were allegedly infiltrated into the city after they were brought in by boat to the coast by Dawood Ibrahim's men. There have been numerous criminal convictions in the case. Ibrahim was charged, but never brought to trial, because police could never catch him.

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

In a password-protected document, officials connected to the State Department report that some of the Mumbai terrorists reportedly were trained by the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba terrorist group, with "camps located in Mansera and Muzzarafabad in Pakistani-administered Kashmir." The 10 terrorists behind the Mumbai massacre "spoke Punjabi" and were of "likely Pakistani origin," the report said.

The 17-page report was written by the Overseas Security Advisory Council, a public-private group that serves as the liaison between the State Department and multi-national corporations. The report is not an official State Department document, and says it uses both "embassy reporting" and press accounts to substantiate its analysis of the deadly attacks.

NBC News obtained a copy of the PowerPoint presentation, which is distributed in password-protected form to clients of OSAC. On its website, OSAC describes itself as "a Federal Advisory Committee with a U.S. Government Charter to promote security cooperation between American business and private sector interests worldwide and the U.S. Department of State."

By Pete Williams, NBC News Justice Correspondent

Government documents made public Tuesday shed new light on the FBI's interest in Dr. Steven Hatfill, the former government scientist who was an early focus of much of the government's energy in investigating the 2001 anthrax mail attacks.

The government later ruled him out and agreed to pay him nearly $6 million to settle a lawsuit alleging violations of his privacy. The documents were drawn up to seek court approval for searching Hatfill's home, car, and storage locker, and the apartment of his girlfriend. They show that the FBI was deeply interested in Hatfill's background and what it considered an inconsistency in his statements about his activities around the time the letters were mailed.

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

Ziad Jarrah will forever be known as the 9-11 hijacker who deliberately crashed United Flight 93 into a field in Pennsylvania, killing a plane full of people just as they were bravely storming the cockpit.

But now videotape obtained by NBC News appears to confirm that Jarrah was stage-managed--and at times even prodded along by al-Qaida--during the early stages of the terrorist’s training.

The unlikely jihadist
The 9-11 Commission found that Jarrah was an odd fit for al-Qaida. The Beirut-born student was Westernized, and almost backed out of the plot at the last minute. “Jarrah clearly differed from the other hijackers in that he maintained much closer contact with his family and continued his intimate relationship with” his German girlfriend, the 9-11 Commission wrote. “These ties may well have caused him to harbor some doubts about going through with the plot, even as late as the summer of 2001.”

The videotape was shot in Afghanistan in late 1999 or January 2000, when investigators know that Jarrah and other members of the Hamburg cell traveled to Osama Bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan for training and plot instructions. The unedited tape is meant to be Jarrah’s “martyrdom” video, in which he explains why he’s committed a terrorist act and killed himself and others.

But Jarrah frequently stumbles through his own martyrdom tape, and often can't maintain a serious tone. His al-Qaida handlers coach him, off-screen, to be more dramatic.

"This speech requires passions and enthusiasm," one of them scolds Jarrah off camera. “Start again!" the man scolds a bit later.

"Why didn’t you try a different approach? I mean another style," a second man chimes in. “Something for the Muslim youths…”

By Aram Roston, NBC News Producer

A notorious international arms dealer was convicted in federal court in Manhattan Thursday, in what's likely to be the end of the colorful career of the so-called "Prince of Marbella," a man who sold weapons to rogue regimes around the world. The conviction of the flamboyant 63-year-old Syrian, Monzer Al Kassar, was a victory for the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration, whose agents had pursued him for more than 15 years. 

Al Kassar's lavish lifestyle and his dealings with unsavory terrorists made him seem like the villain in a James Bond movie. A federal jury convicted him of conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and conspiring to acquire and ship anti-aircraft missiles. He had been caught in a sting operation, in which DEA informants posed as representatives of the Colombia FARC insurgent group. FARC is designated a terrorist group.

I met Al Kassar at his 15-room palace overlooking the Mediterranean in 2006, well before he was indicted in the current case. In an exclusive interview, shortly after he was accused of supporting insurgent groups in Iraq in a separate case, Al Kassar showed off his palace - with its spiral staircases, glass-domed ceiling and lavish carpets. He swore loudly to me that he was simply a "legal arms dealer."