Free Republic

A guided anti-tank missile ended up in the hands of ISIS terrorists less than two months after the US government purchased it in late 2015 — highlighting weaknesses in the oversight and regulation of America’s covert arms programs, according to information published by an arms monitoring group called Conflict Armament Research (CAR). ... CIA... top secret operation to arm rebels in Syria to fight the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The missile ended up in the hands of ISIS fighters in Iraq ... The CIA declined to comment on the Obama-era program to back Syrian rebels, which was canceled...

The Afghan refugee, who is now on trial for the rape and murder of the medical student Maria Ladenburger in October 2016, is older than previously thought. Hussein Khavari entered Germany in November 2015 without identity papers. He told authorities that he was born in 1999 in Afghanistan and that his father was killed during the war. But it now appears that his father is still alive. According to German media his father said his son was born in 1984 and that he is 33-years-old. The Local Germany says about it: “Prosecutors were able to track down Hussein K.’s father...

French and Algerian fighters, some arriving from Syria, have joined the ranks of the Islamic State group in northern Afghanistan where the militants have established new bases, multiple international and Afghan sources have told AFP. It is the first time that the presence of French IS fighters has been recorded in Afghanistan, and comes as analysts suggested foreigners may be heading for the war-torn country after being driven from Syria and Iraq. It is also a troubling sign as France, which has faced the worst of the IS-inspired violence in Europe since 2015, debates how to handle hundreds of its...

Many pilots in Germany are refusing to participate in deportations, local media reported on Monday. Following an information request from the Left Party, the government said that 222 planned flights were stopped by pilots who wanted no part in the controversial return of refugees to Afghanistan, which has been deemed a “safe country of origin” in some cases, despite ongoing violence and repression in parts of the country. Some 85 of the refusals between January and September 2017 came from Germany’s main airline Lufthansa and its subsidiary Eurowings. About 40 took place at Düsseldorf airport, where the controversial deportations are...

Migrant unemployment continues to be a major problem with the district of Salzlandkreis seeing only 56 out of 1,530 migrants registered at the jobcentre able to find full-time work. While the number is up from last year, when 24 migrants were in full-time positions, the total percentage of the total migrant workforce on work is only 3.6 per cent, Mitteldeutsche Zeitung reports. “The refugee target group still presents a special challenge,” head of the district employment agency Thomas Holz said. Mr. Holz said the main issues are the language barrier and the recognition of qualifications and academic degrees from overseas....

Full title :Exclusive — Ret. Lt. Gen. Flynn: Terror-Linked Nations ‘Cutting Deals’ with Mexican Cartels to Enter U.S. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), tells Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM that countries that are known to support radical Islamic terrorism are "cutting deals" with Mexican cartels for access to human smuggling routes into the United States. Citing photos from the U.S. Border Patrol component of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency on Friday, Gen. Flynn also told Washington Political Editor Matthew Boyle, host of Breitbart News Daily, that there are signs...

After Trump Fails to Halt Australia Deal Single men from Afghanistan are among the roughly 1,200 Middle Eastern refugees detained in Australia who have been approved for resettlement in the United States after President Trump failed to honor a commitment that he would terminate the refugee deal with the Oceania country. Former President Obama signed the Australian-U.S. refugee deal during his last months in office — promising to take 1,250 Middle Eastern refugees off Australia’s hands. The refugees – who are mostly adult males – are being held in detention centers on Manus Island and Nauru Island in Australia. Despite...

Insurgents funnel off extraction fees amid disputed control of the site. Officials have warned that smugglers are continuing to pillage Afghanistan’s largest marble mine, with their proceeds helping fund local Taleban groups. Both the Taleban and the government claim control over the mine, situated in the country’s southern Helmand province. Contractors wishing to extract marble from the plentiful reserves often have to pay fees to both officials and the insurgents. This means that the Taleban is guaranteed a lucrative income from the industry. Helmand chief of police Aqa Noor Kintoz told IWPR, “We suffer hundreds of casualties due to this...

16-years after the Bush administration began military operations in Afghanistan, President Trump has just launched a military campaign of his own using high-tech stealth fighters to bomb drug labs in the country....On Monday, the Defense Department said it unleashed F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to bomb narcotic production facilities in southern Afghanistan targeting the revenue streams of the Taliban... .....Every since the U.S. started occupying the country in the early 2000s, OPIUM PRODUCTION SOARED. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said without drugs, the war in Afghanistan “would have been long over.”....."In 2017, Afghanistan’s opium crop and production both HIT A RECORD HIGH.....The strikes Sunday hit...

The US military and Afghan Air Force hit a Taliban command and control center and seven “drug labs” in what the Coalition described as “previously untargeted safe havens in south and southwest” Afghanistan. With a shift in strategy, strikes such as these will become the new normal, the top US commander in Afghanistan said.The coordinated airstrikes took place over the last day in three Taliban controlled or contested districts in northern Helmand province: Musa Qala (four strikes), Kajaki (three), and Sangin (one). Musa Qala and Sangin are controlled by the Taliban, while Kajaki is hotly contested, according to ongoing...

U.S. and Afghan forces have launched a series of attacks on narcotics laboratories in southern Afghanistan, marking the start of what could become a long, expanded air war there under President Trump.The initial strikes, which began Sunday and were ongoing Monday, represent the first significant use of new legal authorities granted by the Trump administration in August that enable the Pentagon to target Taliban revenue streams, said Army Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Previously, the U.S. military conducted strikes only when facing imminent threat or working directly with the Afghans.Speaking to the Pentagon press...

A Staff Sgt. in the Marines has just had his 2012 conviction for urinating on dead terrorists overturned. The shocking reversal comes after the revelation that an Obama official railroaded the soldier. Staff Sgt. Joseph Chamblin, one of several Marine Corps soldiers convicted in 2012 for having recorded themselves urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, had his conviction overturned this week because an Obama-appointed official had attempted to rig his trial.

French president Emmanuel ignored controversy and criticism surrounding France’s new draconian anti-terror bill and urged police forces around the country to “fully utilize” their new powers. The French parliament on Wednesday adopted a controversial anti-terror bill that gives the authorities permanent new powers to search homes, shut places of worship and restrict freedom of movement. The new law, which will replace the state of emergency imposed after the 2015 Paris attacks, was approved by the Senate on its second reading, despite campaigners warning of a threat to civil liberties. […] Under the bill, the authorities will have the power to...

A U.S. service member was killed in Afghanistan on Saturday afternoon as a result of wounds sustained during operations in the country's eastern Logar Province, according to the U.S. military.“On behalf of U.S. Forces – Afghanistan, we offer our deepest condolences to the family of our fallen brother,” said General John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan, in a press release. “Despite this tragic event, we remain steadfast in our commitment to the Afghan people and to support them in our mutual fight against terrorism.” The identity of the service member has not yet been released, and the military...

Late Friday morningArmy Judge Col. Jeffery R. Nance ruled Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl will not face prison time for walking off his base eight years ago and abandoning his platoon mates. Bergdahl's defense argued he has been punished enough by being held captive by the Taliban, which radio traffic showed he purposely sought out, and shouldn't be subjected to further captivity. Nance bought it and Bergdahl will simply face a dishonorable discharge, have his rank stripped and will pay $10,000. Good men died searching for Bergdahl. Here are their names.  Staff Sergeant Clayton Bowen, 29, of San Antonio, TX Died looking for...

Bowe Bergdahl's Sentence: No Prison Time November 3, 201711:44 AM ET Merrit Kennedy A military judge sentenced Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who has pleaded guilty to charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, to no prison time at a sentencing hearing Friday in Fort Bragg, N.C.

Former Taliban captive Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has symptoms similar to schizophrenia and is suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a forensic psychiatrist who testified in the soldier's trial on Wednesday. Bergdahl's lawyers called upon forensic psychiatrist and professor Dr. Charles Morgan, who specializes in working with prisoners of war and examined Bergdahl in 2016, in the trial's third day of witness testimony. Bergdahl, 31, faces up to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy for abandoning his Army post in Afghanistan in June 2009. The closing arguments in the...

We've fought in Afghanistan for 16 years now. Are we making progress? After 9/11, we invaded, overthrew the Taliban, killed Osama Bin Laden and -- stayed. Afghanistan is now America's longest war, ever. President Trump's solution? He'll send several thousand more soldiers. Erik Prince says he has a better idea -- fight terrorists with only 2,000 American Special Operations personnel, plus "a contractor force" of 6,000. Prince is the founder of Blackwater, the private military contractor. The military uses contractors to provide security, deliver mail, rescue soldiers and more. Private contractors often do jobs well, for much less than the...

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in Pakistan to deliver a tough message on the importance of fighting extremists and driving them from hideouts on Pakistani territory. Tillerson arrived in Islamabad on Tuesday, a day after traveling to Iraq and Afghanistan in conditions of strict secrecy. He met with Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Foreign Minister Khwaja Mohammad Asif and the heads of the army and intelligence services. In Afghanistan on Monday, he told reporters that Pakistan's cooperation on counterterrorism is essential for a good relationship with the U.S. His comments echoed those of other top U.S. officials...

The admission is in; the sentence awaits us. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl admitted deserting his Afghan post and endangering fellow troops. By all accounts this is the most serious betrayal of presidential authority in my life time. In 2014 President Obama attempted to cover Bergdahl with the achievement of a war hero, even inviting his Idaho based parents to the Rose Garden to celebrate news of his release. President Obama pointed out at the time that five Taliban leaders were freed from Guantanamo so that Bergdahl could be released from captivity. To gild the lily, National Security Adviser, Susan Rice,...