Free Republic

Recently, I was speaking with a friend of mine, a committed liberal and an equally committed member of the anti-Trump camp. Despising President Donald Trump is almost a default position in my Chicago-area community; however, my liberal friend has always impressed me as reasonable and well informed. Hence my particular consternation when he, in a most matter-of-fact way, said President Trump is costing us friends and influence around the world, as if it were an accepted truth. This was more annoying than surprising, because ever since Donald Trump took office, the mainstream media and their political allies have been working...

Kuwait City, 5 Feb. (AKI) - The US air raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Abu Layth al-Libi in Pakistan is reported to have also killed three other leaders from the terrorist network. According to the Kuwaiti daily, al-Watan, two Kuwaitis and a Libyan also died in the missile attack conducted by a Predator aircraft on January 25 in Mir Ali, in North Waziristan on the border of Afghanistan. The daily said the attack was aimed at what was believed to have been an al-Qaeda summit meeting. Abu Obeida Tawari al-Obeidi and Abu Adel al-Kuwaiti were reportedly there with al-Libi.Abu Adel...

MIRANSHAH: Ten people including outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur are reportedly killed in drone strike in North Waziristan, Geo News reported. Sources said the unmanned aircraft fired two missiles at the compound of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, killing the TTP commander and 9 others in Alwar Mandi of Shawal area. Several other people also sustained injuries in the strike.

The Haqqani Network, the terrorist group that the U.S. command in Afghanistan says is its most formidable enemy — worse than the Taliban or al Qaeda — has operated for a dozen years across the border in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area with little to fear other than sporadic drone strikes. Now, even the drone strikes have stopped for the family-run gang that held Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five years. ... The Haqqani network maintains a safe haven in North Waziristan, Pakistan, across Afghanistan’s southeastern border. The Pakistani Army has consistently refused to launch a military operation in North...

The Pakistani government is on the verge of launching a major military offensive in the North Waziristan tribal region following a series of brutal Taliban attacks in recent weeks and the apparent failure of peace talks with the militants, according to a senior Pakistani official. “It could be any day,” said the official, who added that military plans have been shared with top U.S. officials who have long urged an offensive. Planning for the operation comes amid a Pakistan-requested pause in U.S. drone strikes now entering its third month — the longest period without an attack in more than two...

The leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, has been killed in a drone strike, a high-ranking Taliban official has told the BBC. Mehsud became leader of the Pakistani Taliban in 2009, aged 30, after his predecessor died in a US drone strike.

The head of the Pakistani Taliban was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan on Friday, several security sources told Reuters, -excerpt- Hakimullah Mehsud, who was believed to be in his mid-30s and was one of Pakistan's most wanted men, has been reported dead several times before. But late on Friday, several intelligence, army and militant sources across Pakistan confirmed he had been killed in the drone strike in the lawless North Waziristan region.

Private Bergdahl - assuming he's still alive - is spending Christmas as a captive of the Taliban. His captors spent the last day or two uploading a video showing Private Bergdahl reading a statement. The video was divided into four segments and uploaded to YouTube on 25 December 2009. The YouTube account is:

PESHAWAR: Backed by gunship helicopters, several hundred security forces Tuesday raided a madrassa run by well-known Afghan mujahideen and Taliban commander, Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, at Danday Darpakhel village in North Waziristan tribal agency. This was the eighth time that the madrassa was raided and searched. Official and tribal sources told this scribe from Danday Darpakhel, a town near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, that a large number of troops from Pakistan Army and the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) along with Khassadars and Levies personnel first besieged the village and then raided the huge and famous madrassa known as “Manba-ul-Uloom”. Witnesses said...

Till 2004, Pakistan was a peaceful country and suicide bombing was unheard of. The figure of terrorism-afflicted casualties began to rise from 2005 onwards and by 2007 the number rose to 3599 killed. The death toll has now jumped to 35000. While the total fatalities of ISAF in Afghanistan from 2001 till 30 September were 2670, which includes 1800 US soldiers, Pak Army alone has suffered 3500 deaths and injuries to 10,000 soldiers. Wear and tear of weapons, tanks, APCs, helicopters, guns and vehicles is substantial. Given the acute resource constraints, it is very difficult for Pak Army to replace...

Mr Musharaff told The Daily Telegraph that it was important for his country to spell out to the world why the Haqqani network was being allowed to operate on its soil... "Certainly if Afghanistan is being used by India to create an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan, we would like to prevent that." He said the Haqqani group was the source of a "terrible" lack of trust and confidence and added: "The United States must understand Pakistan has its own national interest. The United States must accept the compulsions of Pakistan and give assurances." ... Mr Musharraf said Pakistan must "talk straight" about...

The Obama administration declared Friday that the Pakistan-based Haqqani network of militants is a terrorist body despite misgivings about how the largely symbolic act could further stall planned Afghan peace talks or put yet another chill on the United States' already fragile counterterrorism alliance with Islamabad. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's decision, signed Friday ahead of a Sunday deadline set by Congress, bans Americans from doing business with members of the group and blocks any assets it holds in the United States. The order, which will go into effect within 10 days, completes an odyssey of sorts for the...

SNIPPET: "Al Qaeda commander continues to pose a threat to U.S. and South Asian security as Pakistan’s military and intelligence services look the other way” IPT News June 22, 2010 SNIPPET: “Top Al Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri poses a major threat to U.S. interests both at home and abroad. Described by intelligence agencies “as the most effective, dangerous and successful guerrilla leader in the world,” Kashmiri heads Al Qaeda’s military operations wing. He figures prominently in two recent high-profile terrorism indictments issued in Chicago. But Kashmiri remains free in South Asia and in control of a renowned Al Qaeda terror...

MIRANSHAH (SANA): A bomb ripped through a military vehicle Saturday martyring two soldiers in a village in Miranshah. According to sources close to security forces, the incident took place in Data Khel area of North Waziristan tribal agency that left two soldiers dead. The remote-controlled bomb planted on a roadside hit a patrol party leading a convoy of security forces at Boya village, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of Miranshah. The vehicle was also damaged as a result of blast. Security forces imposed curfew in the area after the attack and launched a search operation to trace the perpetrators....

1 The Long War Journal: US Predators kill 6 'militants' in North and South Waziristan Written by Bill Roggio on October 13, 2011 12:09 AM to 1 The Long War Journal Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/10/us_predators_kill_4_10.php US Predators struck today in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan, killing six "militants" in the first recorded strikes in nearly two weeks. In the first strike, the unmanned, CIA-operated Predators, or the more deadly Reapers, fired a pair of missiles in the village of Danda Darpa Khel just outside Miramshah, the main town in North Waziristan, according to AFP. Pakistani...

As US and Pakistani intelligence attempted to determine who else might have been killed in the Jan. 29 US airstrike in North Waziristan that took the life of al Qaeda commander Abu Laith al Libi, a new, unconfirmed report claimed Adam Gadahn, Laith's American deputy, died in the strike, as did two Kuwaitis and four other terrorists. Sources inside Pakistan told the Nine/Eleven Finding Answers Foundation that US traitor Adam Gadahn was killed, along with Abu Suhail, Laith's former deputy; Hamza al Somali, who is presumably of Australian or US nationality; Abu Ubayda Tawari Rakhis al Mutairi, a Kuwaiti national;...

MIRAMSHAH: A US missile strike targeting a militant compound killed five rebels in Pakistan’s tribal badlands near the Afghan border on Friday, security officials said. The strike took place in Ghwakhwa area, 10 kilometres (six miles) west of Wana, the main town of South Waziristan tribal region, where the military launched an operation two years ago. “A US drone fired three missiles on a militant compound, killing five rebels,” a senior security official in the area told AFP. Another security official confirmed the strike and casualties but said the “identities of those killed in the attack were not immediately known”....

NOTE The following text is a quote: Travel Alert U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Bureau of Consular Affairs Europe October 3, 2010 The State Department alerts U.S. citizens to the potential for terrorist attacks in Europe. Current information suggests that al-Qa’ida and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks. European governments have taken action to guard against a terrorist attack and some have spoken publicly about the heightened threat conditions. Terrorists may elect to use a variety of means and weapons and target both official and private interests. U.S. citizens are reminded of the potential for terrorists to attack public transportation...

MIR ALI, Pakistan – A suspected U.S. drone fired three missiles at a house in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing five alleged militants in the 14th such attack this month — the most intense barrage since the strikes began in 2004, said intelligence officials. The house belonged to a local militant and was located in Datta Khel, a town in the North Waziristan tribal area that is controlled by militants who regularly launch cross-border attacks against NATO troops in Afghanistan, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.

PHOTO CAPTION: "A Uighur terrorist, thought to be Abdul Haq al Turkistani, from a videotape released by the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party in 2008." SNIPPET: "Abdul Haq al Turkistani, a member of al Qaeda's Shura Majlis and the leader of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIP), a terror group that seeks to establish an Islamic emirate in western China and Central Asia, was killed in a US airstrike in Pakistan in February, US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. Turkistani was killed in the Feb. 14, 2010, strike on a compound in the village of Zor Babar Aidak near...