Free Republic

SNIPPET: "ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkish police launched a nationwide crackdown on suspected militants linked to the al-Qaida terror network on Friday..." SNIPPET: "Those detained Friday's raids include a faculty member of the Yuzunci Yil University in the eastern city of Van, who is suspected of recruiting students at the campus and other people through the Internet and of sending them to Afghanistan for training, Anatolia reported, citing unnamed police officials. The suspect was identified by his initials M.E.Y. only. Anatolia said other suspects included some local leaders, university students, and people believed to be spreading al-Qaida propaganda."

The Taliban scored a power ful psychological victory yesterday, as fewer than two dozen suicide attackers brought Afghanistan's government and capital city to a standstill. In a dramatic wave of attacks (possibly planned with help from Pakistani intelligence operatives), the Taliban struck Kabul's presidential palace, several government ministries and a multistory shopping complex. And they did it just as President Hamid Karzai was swearing in his new Cabinet (despite a battle with parliament over the legitimacy of his picks). Think that gave Afghans renewed confidence in their government?

Kabul was rocked by blasts as the sound of gunfire filled the streets Suspected Taliban militants have launched an attack in the Afghan capital Kabul, setting off explosions and sparking a gun battle. The fighting erupted near the Serena Hotel and presidential palace, although Afghan President Hamid Karzai says security has now been restored. The Taliban said 20 of its fighters were involved. Two civilians and three security personnel have been killed plus 71 others wounded, officials say. Seven attackers had also been killed, Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said.

The Taliban attack in Kabul is reportedly winding down. The assault began around 9:35 a.m. local time Jan. 18 (the day the new Cabinet was being sworn in) when reports of rocket fire and explosions were heard in the Afghan capital near several government buildings. Just 23 minutes later, reports emerged that the Taliban had claimed the attack in a message to the Afghan Islamic Press. In the claim, Taliban spokesman Zabihollah Mojahed said 20 suicide assailants were attacking the Presidential Palace, the Central Bank and the Ministries of Finance, Justice and Mines and Industries. The Serena Hotel, the Defense...

Despite the lingering demonstrations and disorder in Tehran, Iran’s ruling mullahs are confident anew in their country’s ability to surge to a hegemonic position in the Middle East without a major war. The main reason for the mullahs’ confidence is their interpretation of the appeasement policies of the US Barack Obama Administration. Most significant is the undeclared – yet widely projected – profound change in US policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran and all other regional governments are convinced that the US now strives to “contain” a nuclear Iran rather than continue the declared objective to prevent the nuclearization of...

UZBEEN VALLEY, Afghanistan (AFP) – More than 1,100 soldiers, including 800 French legionnaires as well as US and Afghan commandos, launched a major operation Thursday east of the Afghan capital, military officials said. Military officials said five US special forces were wounded in the fighting in the Uzbeen Valley, a Taliban stronghold where 10 French soldiers were killed in an ambush in August 2008.

URGENT -- HUGE BLAST ROCKS KABUL, AFGHANISTAN. MORE TO COME

KABUL -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived in this war-torn country Tuesday morning on an unannounced visit, prepared to offer U.S. troops a message from Washington after President Obama's decision to boost troop levels significantly: "We are in this thing to win." "A big piece of it, of my conversations especially with the soldiers, will be just to thank them for their service, for their sacrifice and to tell them we are in this thing to win," Gates, speaking to reporters traveling with him, said before his arrival here. Gates, the first senior U.S. official to travel to Afghanistan...

Afghan election officials said Thursday that there will be more voting centres for next week's presidential runoff than in the fraud-tainted first-round vote in August, rejecting U.N. recommendations to eliminate sites to prevent cheating. The Aug. 20 presidential poll was so tainted by widespread ballot-box stuffing and distorted ballot tallies that fraud investigators threw out more than a million votes, enough to force President Hamid Karzai into a second round against his top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Observers and U.N. advisers attributed much of the fraud to so-called ghost polling stations that never opened but returned results or...

Gunmen attacked a guest house used by U.N. staff in the Afghan capital of Kabul early Wednesday, killing at least seven people including three U.N. staff, officials said. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility, saying it was meant as an assault on the upcoming presidential election. Heavy gunfire reverberated through the streets shortly after dawn and a large plume of smoke rose over the city following the attack in the Shar-e-Naw district. Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman said seven people were killed, including some attackers. U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards confirmed that three U.N. staff were among the dead and one was...

When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified. Their revulsion increased with the news that many of the dead soldiers had been mutilated — and with the publication of photographs showing the militants triumphantly sporting their victims’ flak jackets and weapons. The French had been in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, for only a month, taking over from the Italians; it was one of the biggest single losses of life by Nato forces in Afghanistan. What the grieving...

A powerful car bomb exploded outside the Indian Embassy in the busy center of Afghanistan's capital early Thursday, killing at least 12 people, destroying vehicles and blowing off the walls of shops, officials said. Eleven of the dead were civilians and one was an Afghan police officer, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. At least 84 people, including members of Afghan security forces, were wounded in the attack, which struck a shop-lined road between the Indian Embassy and the Interior Ministry, said Health Ministry spokesman Ahmad Farid Raaid.

Note: The following text is a quote: Warden Message: Afghanistan Travel Concerns: Kabul to Logar Province CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS South / Central Asia - Afghanistan 29 Sep 2009 U.S. Embassy Kabul issued the following Warden Message September 29, 2009: The U.S. Embassy has received information that, as of late September 2009, Taliban members in Logar Province, Afghanistan, were planning on an unspecified date to ambush and capture unidentified Americans who routinely travel between Kabul City and Logar Province. The Taliban reportedly intend to follow the Americans’ vehicle from Kabul and stop the car en route. The U.S. Embassy urges Americans...

Special Dispatch - No. 2505 August 25, 2009 Pakistan Taliban Commander: We Have 'Thousands of Suicide Bombers' Who Can 'Target Washington, Paris, London, and Kabul' On August 25, 2009, a Pakistani Urdu-language newspaper reported that Waliur Rehman, the commander of the Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal district of South Waziristan Agency, had said that his group has "thousands of suicide bombers" who can "target Washington, Paris, London, and Kabul."

Afghan police have killed at least three gunmen who stormed a bank building in Kabul this morning in the latest of string of Taleban attacks designed to disrupt tomorrow’s presidential election. Police were searching for any remaining attackers after a short gun battle at the building, which is just a few hundred metres from the presidential palace compound where President Hamid Karzai lives. A Taleban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack which followed a suicide car bombing yesterday that killed eight people and wounded more than 50 in Kabul. He also claimed that 20 armed suicide attackers wearing explosive vests...

A large suicide car bomb which exploded in the Afghan capital of Kabul this morning has killed at least seven civilians and wounded 91.The attack, which took place outside the main gate of the Nato headquarters in the heavily fortified Wazir Akbar Khan area of the city, comes ahead of the country's upcoming presidential election on Thursday. The Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said: 'It was a suicide bombing carried out in a car right in front of ISAF (the Nato-led peacekeeping force).' A blaze can be seen in the immediate aftermath of the suicide car bomb which...

A large blast ripped through the centre of Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Saturday, Reuters witnesses said, and smoke could be seen rising above the city's diplomatic quarter. . .

KABUL (AP) - Afghan army officers and witnesses say one of the five rockets that has slammed into Kabul fell near the American Embassy. The rocket's impact could be seen about 200 meters (yards) down from the U.S. Embassy on a main road in central Kabul. Security officers say the rocket hit the house of a senior Interior Ministry official but caused no casualties. At the scene, Maj. Ghulam Rasul of the Afghan national army said he believed the five rockets that hit early Tuesday were fired from a long range.

A New York Times reporter known for making investigative trips deep inside dangerous conflict zones escaped from militant captors after more than seven months in captivity by climbing over a wall, the newspaper said Saturday. David S. Rohde was abducted Nov. 10 along with an Afghan reporter colleague and a driver south of the Afghan capital, Kabul. He had been traveling through Logar province to interview a Taliban commander, but was apparently intercepted and taken by other militants on the way. The Times reported that Rohde and Afghan reporter Tahi Ludin on Friday climbed over the wall of a compound...

Note: The following text is a quote: Minneapolis Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Al-Qaeda Mohammed Abdullah Warsame, a 35-year-old resident of Minneapolis, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support and resources to al-Qaeda Warsame, a naturalized Canadian citizen of Somali descent, entered his plea of guilty this afternoon before U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim in federal court in Minneapolis. At sentencing, which was set for 1:30 pm on July 9, 2009, Warsame faces a statutory maximum sentence of 15 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. He has agreed to...