A farm bill amendment will require reports from the administration on automatic cuts to both defense and non-defense spending.

The Topline: A bevy of current and former Washington heavy-hitters will give their two cents on the raft of national security challenges — from the dangers of sequestration to fighting on a cyber battlefield — facing the United States in the near future. The agenda for Bloomberg's first annual defense conference on Thursday is a who's who of the defense world. Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), the respective chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, are on the agenda, along with House Armed Services Committee chief Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.). Senior House defense appropriator and Boeing fan Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) will also be in attendance alongside former DOD comptroller Tina Jonas, former DHS chief Michael Chertoff and Vice Admiral Bill Landay, head of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. With all that national security know-how under one roof, defense scribes and observers alike should be in for a show. 

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An al Qaeda plot to attack several foreign embassies in Yemen's capitol of Saana was foiled on Wednesday, as American-backed government forces continue to hammer away at the group's strongholds in the south. 

A think tank says Iran might have conducted further clean-up activity at its Parchin military site, where Iran is suspected of testing nuclear materials and has thus far refused to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to visit.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank, posted Wednesday satellite images of the facility from June 7 that show “heavy machinery tracks and earth displacement throughout the site.”

“There is evidence of earth moving machinery and excavation activity near the second demolished building north of the building suspected to contain the high explosive testing chamber,” the report says.

The threat of U.S. military action to thwart Iran's secretive nuclear program holds no weight in Tehran's eyes because of the massive automatic defense budget cuts expected later this year, according to House Republicans. 

A military instructor who taught in a college course that the United States was at war with Islam has been suspended and the course will be redesigned, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey in April ordered a review of the course at National Defense University’s Joint Forces Staff College, “Perspectives on Islamic and Islamic Radicalism,” after complaints surfaced about the content in the elective class.

The review found there were “institutional failures in oversight and judgment,” in the way the course was modified over time, Dempsey spokesman Col. David Lapan said in a statement.

Wednesday's decision could further strain relations between Washington and Kabul as 32,000 American troops begin rotating out of Afghanistan.

The top investigator overseeing Afghanistan reconstruction is looking into how and why Kabul has been taxing American companies supporting the reconstruction effort. 

Pakistan has arrested a European al Qaeda operative who has ties to the 9/11 attacks, according to reports from Islamabad, a development that could ease soured U.S.-Pakistan relations.

Pakistani officials arrested French national Naamen Meziche during a raid near the Iran border, The Associated Press reported, but the officials did not say when the raid took place.

Meziche is an al Qaeda member, and The Wall Street Journal has reported he had ties to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers. He was also connected to Younis al-Mauritani, who was arrested in Pakistan last year, and Pakistani officials said his interrogation led to Meziche's capture, according to the AP.