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KABUL: Indian national Sushmita Banerjee, whose memoir about her dramatic escape from the Taliban was turned into a Bollywood film, was shot dead in Afghanistan by militants, police said on Thursday. Banerjee, 49, was killed outside her home in Paktika province. She was married to Afghan businessman Jaanbaz Khan and recently moved back to Afghanistan to live with him. Taliban militants arrived at her home in the provincial capital of Kharana, tied up her husband and other members of the family, took Banerjee out and shot her, police were quoted as saying by BBC. The militants dumped Banerjee's body near...

Traveler Information Ramadan, a holy month for persons of the Muslim faith, begins this year approximately on Tuesday, July 9, 2013 and ends on Thursday, August 8, 2013. TSA understands that this is a significant religious event for the Muslim community. TSA has reminded its security workforce that traveling passengers may be observed at various areas in the airport - including security checkpoints or on aircraft - engaged in religious practices and meditations during Ramadan. TSA would also like to inform the traveling public that they may notice passengers who are observing Ramadan engaging in the following activities at the...

In its latest effort to protect followers of Islam in the U.S. the Obama Justice Department warns against using social media to spread information considered inflammatory against Muslims, threatening that it could constitute a violation of civil rights. The move comes a few years after the administration became the first in history to dispatch a U.S. Attorney General to personally reassure Muslims that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is dedicated to protecting them. In the unprecedented event, Attorney General Eric Holder assured a San Francisco-based organization (Muslim Advocates) that urges members not to cooperate in federal terrorism investigations that the...

As Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi said that virulent anti-Semitic comments which he reportedly said prior to his election were taken out of context, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) released another video which depicts him making similar comments. The latest video is an address delivered by Morsi, which was posted on the Internet on January 10, 2010. It was translated by MEMRI and published on Wednesday. In the newly exposed remarks, Morsi calls U.S. President Barack Obama “insincere” and calls for Arabs to raise their children on hatred of Jews.

A mob broke into a Pakistani police station and burned a man accused of desecrating the Koran alive, police said Saturday, in the latest violence focusing attention on the country’s blasphemy laws. … At least 53 people have been killed in Pakistan since 1990 after being accused of blasphemy, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies, and accusations are becoming more frequent. Blasphemy in Pakistan is punishable by death, but it is not specifically defined by law. …

British troops could return home from Afghanistan even “faster” than planned, David Cameron has said, as 3,800 troops are scheduled to be withdrawn by the end of next year. … Speaking to reporters at Camp Bastion, the main operational headquarters for British troops, Mr. Cameron said the proposed timetable for troop withdrawals was “flexible”. “Of course there is always flexibility in any plan,” he said. “But I would make the point that so far, things have surprised on the upside in terms of the capability of the Afghan forces. So we might be able to move a little bit faster....

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won't testify to Congress next week on Benghazi, after fainting and suffering a concussion Saturday and due to her ongoing stomach ailment. "While suffering from a stomach virus, Secretary Clinton became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a concussion," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philippe Reines said in a statement. "She has been recovering at home and will continue to be monitored regularly by her doctors. At their recommendation, she will continue to work from home next week, staying in regular contact with Department and other officials. She is looking forward to being back in the office...

A senior commander of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard claimed Friday that Western sanctions are helpful because they promote Iranian self-sufficiency and insisted the country’s leaders should welcome the measures. Oil and trade embargoes have helped Iran reduce its reliance on the outside world, Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi told worshipers at Tehran University in a pre-sermon speech. The remarks echoed the defiant mantra of Iranian conservatives who say the economy is strengthening and that Iran is developing more modern technologies—including building missiles, drones, satellites and advancing its uranium enrichment program—precisely because of the West’s punitive measures. …

Does Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi desire to become a dictator...or another Abraham Lincoln? Did that question make you burst out laughing? If so, please be prepared for an even bigger laugh when you watch Atlantic editor Steve Clemons expend brain cells while struggling to figure out the answer to that question in his column. So laughable are the efforts of Clemons trying to come up with what to even slightly aware people is the obvious answer that you might need an oxygen mask due to an inability to catch a breath:

Hamas has set the destruction of Israel as its goal. Between September 2000 and April 2004, Hamas perpetrated 425 terrorist attacks against Israel and murdered 377 Israelis - nine every month. Hamas was founded by Islamic militant extremists in the Gaza Strip in 1988, shortly after the first intifada broke out. The word Hamas is an acronym for the Arabic words for "Islamic Resistance Movement." Though it is also involved in social and welfare programs, the organization is devoted chiefly to the obliteration of Israel. Its charter states, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate...

(Reuters) - An actress who said she was duped into appearing in an anti-Islam film that stoked violent protests against the United States across the Muslim world on Friday lost her second legal bid to force the video off of YouTube. Denying a request by actress Cindy Lee Garcia for a court order requiring the popular online video site to remove the crudely made 13-minute clip, a federal judge found she was unlikely to prevail on her claims of copyright infringement. U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald of Santa Clara, California, also canceled a December 3 hearing he had previously set...

A mother murdered her young son and set his body on fire when he struggled to learn the Koran off by heart, a court has heard. Sara Ege used a stick to beat seven-year-old Yaseen “like a dog” if he couldn’t recite passages from the Islamic text. The beatings were so brutal that the boy died from his injuries, and his mother tried to burn the body to destroy the evidence, Cardiff Crown Court was told. …

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which monitors anti-Semitic incidents worldwide, has made a strong condemnation of Egypt’s new President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, after he attended a sermon where the preacher called for the “destruction and dispersal of the Jews.” A video emailed by the center showed Morsi at a mosque in the Mediterranean town of Marsa Matruh, where the congregation answers “Amen” to a cleric who recites a list of prayers in a traditional ritual. In one of the prayers, the cleric asked God to “destroy the Jews and their supporters and disperse them, rend them asunder.” Morsi...

A Middle Eastern man tried to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in Lower Manhattan this morning, law-enforcement sources told the Post. The terrorist parked a van filled with what he thought were explosives outside of the Liberty Street building, sources said, then tried to set them off using a cell phone detonator. The suspect, who was not immediately identified, was provided the explosives from an undercover FBI agent that he met on the Internet and believed to be an accomplice, the sources said. …

Asked by host Neil deGrasse Tyson what he thought about the death penalty and abortion, Maher re-affirmed his support for both, remarking, “The Pope is consistently pro-life, I am consistently pro-death.” Expressing how he was pro-death penalty, Maher said, “my motto is let’s kill the right people.” “I’m pro-choice, I’m for assisted suicide, I’m for regular suicide, I’m for whatever gets the freeway moving – that’s what I’m for,” said Maher, adding, “It’s too crowded, the planet is too crowded and we need to promote death.” Explaining how he knew many people who felt the same, Maher went on to...

A ruling handed down on September 13th by the D.C. District Federal Court has finally made clear what many have known for years–that the Obama Administration’s Iran policy was initiated and advanced by a group with illicit, hidden ties to the Iranian Regime and financed by the U.S./Israel- hating George Soros. In 2009, Barack Obama turned over virtually all responsibility and authority for foreign policy negotiations with Iran to Trita Parsi and his National Iranian American Council (NIAC). Founded by Parsi in 2003, the Washington-based NIAC is a powerful lobbying group that is “…widely considered the de facto lobby for...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday he would seek to have the Palestinians' U.N. status upgraded to a sovereign country and cautioned that Israeli settlement expansion meant time was running out for a two-state solution. "Despite all the complexities of the prevailing reality and all the frustrations that abound, we say before the international community there is still a chance—maybe the last—to save the two-state solution and to salvage peace," Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly. But he warned the 193-nation assembly that Israel was "promising the Palestinian people a new catastrophe" if it continues with its current Jewish...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Egypt's new President Mohammed Morsi assigned himself the heavyweight's role in the Middle East on Wednesday, declaring in his first speech to the United Nations that the civil war raging in Syria is the "tragedy of the age" and must be brought to an end. In a wide-ranging address that touched on all major issues confronting the region, Morsi also decried Israeli settlement-building on territory Palestinians claim for a future state and condemned a film produced in the United States that denigrates Islam's Prophet Muhammad. He urged all U.N. member nations to join in an effort...

Editor's note: President Barack Obama will address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday at around 10:00 a.m. You can follow along here as we live blog his speech or watch it live on CNN.com. [Updated at 10:22 a.m. ET] President Barack Obama began his address to the U.N. General Assembly by speaking about Ambassador Chris Stevens who was killed in the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya. "He came to love and respect the people of North Africa and the Middle East, and he would carry that commitment throughout his life," Obama said. "As a diplomat, he worked...

American national wanted by US government among alleged terror group members detained in Merida. An alleged terrorist belonging to the radical Islamic movement Hezbollah has been arrested in Mexico and handed over to US authorities, Mexican media reported Sunday...