Free Republic

The State Department is planning to spend $400,000 to purchase a fiberglass statue of a white camel for a new U.S. embassy being built in Pakistan, BuzzFeed first reported Monday, citing contracting records. The sculpture, by artist John Baldessari, is of a life-size ablino camel staring upward at the eye of a huge needle. “A life-size dromedary with its neck extended inquisitively eyes a super-sized needle in a way which makes the viewer think it could actually pass through the needle’s eye,” described Hall Wines, which has a copy of the piece on display. “The colorless beast with striking blue...

The United States is trying to sell or dispose of billions of dollars in military hardware, including sophisticated and highly specialized mine resistant vehicles as it packs up to leave Afghanistan after 13 years of war, officials said Monday.

Sajeel Sahid ran a camp where he taught bomb-making and combat skills. Now he’s opened a primary school in Great Britain. Ad-Deen school founder Sajeel Sahid, 38, called for violence against British troops and ran a training camp in Pakistan where known terrorists learned how to make bombs and fire rocket- propelled grenades. ... One of his ‘graduates’ was Mohammed Siddique Khan, who led the gang of four suicide bombers on the deadliest terrorist attack ever committed in Britain, killing 52 people on the London Underground and a bus on July 7, 2005. Shahid also allegedly trained four convicted terrorists...

As US president Barack Obama looks to mend ties with Saudi Arabia in Riyadh today, the Saudis hope to shore up regional support. Their $1.5 billion gift has raised suspicions among Pakistanis. Pakistan announced last week that it received a $1.5 billion grant from Saudi Arabia, which it termed a “friendly gift” and an “unconditional grant.” Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have long had warm ties, but the no-strings-attached gift sparked immediate concern from Pakistani journalists, security experts, and opposition politicians, who question whether the grant is part of a behind-the-scenes deal for Pakistan to provide weapons for Syrian rebels. “There...

In 1989, the Chinese Chengdu Aerospace Corporation unveiled a major upgrade for its locally-made F-7 jet fighter, a licensed copy of the classic Soviet MiG-21. The new F-7 variant moved the engine air intake from the nose tip to the sides of the fuselage, making room in the nose for a more powerful radar. Twenty-one years later, this upgrade—now named JF-17 Thunder—is flying combat missions with the Pakistani air force, so far its sole user. Further enhanced with a new wing, a cutting-edge intake design and a new, more powerful engine, the JF-17 is Pakistan’s most important front-line fighter—and a...

BARACK OBAMA may recall a tricky moment when he first met King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia five years ago. Bending to shake hands with the octogenarian monarch, the taller American appeared to bow deeply. Republican snipers in America gleefully blasted the president for “kowtowing” to rich Arabs. Such protocols should run more smoothly when Mr Obama heads to Saudi Arabia on March 28th for his second time in office. Unfortunately, however, relations between the two countries have seldom been more awkward. Their close alliance dates to the end of the second world war, when an ailing Franklin Roosevelt met Saudi...

Last week, Taliban militants stormed into the Serena Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing nine including children. The Serena was one of most heavily secured buildings in Kabul. The attack there follows many Taliban attacks on Afghan civilians and US forces, as well as Afghan forces attacks on American troops there. But today, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai insists that “foreign intelligence agencies” are responsible for the Serena attack. The Afghan government held foreign agencies of intelligence responsible for an attack against a luxury hotel in this city that left nine fatalities and various injured. President Hamid Karzai’s management denied that groups...

PESHAWAR: A lady health worker was found dead in Koh-e-Daman village in the jurisdiction of Daudzai police station on Monday, Express News reported. She was kidnapped from her house in Guluzai village in the jurisdiction area of Chamkani police station on the night of March 23. The body of the worker, identified as Salma Farooq, bore torture marks as well. Earlier today, police had said that around eight armed men had entered the house of Farooq, held the family hostage at gunpoint and took the woman away with them.

Scientists say man-made climate change has fundamentally altered the currents of the vast, deep oceans where investigators are currently scouring for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, setting a complex stage for the ongoing search for MH370. If the Boeing 777 did plunge into the ocean somewhere in the vicinity of where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean, the location where its debris finally ends up, if found at all, may be vastly different from where investigators could have anticipated 30 years ago.

This Thursday, Mr. Obama will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican after a three-decade divergence with the church. By the late 1980s, the Catholic hierarchy had taken a conservative turn that de-emphasized social engagement and elevated the culture wars that would eventually cast Mr. Obama as an abortion-supporting enemy. Mr. Obama, who went on to find his own faith with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s Trinity United Church of Christ, drifted from his youthful, church-backed activism to become a pragmatic politician and the president with a terrorist “kill list.” The meeting this week is a potential point of...

If someone is accused of blasphemy in Pakistan, all too often he or she is brutalized or killed before any trial is held. Or even if acquitted, as in this case, the accused person is targeted by a Muslim mob that enforces the Sharia death penalty for blasphemy by a vigilante action. This is a human rights issue of massive proportions, and yet the “world human rights community” seems decidedly uninterested in calling upon Pakistan to repeal its blasphemy laws and combat blasphemy vigilantism.“Pak man gunned down despite being acquitted in blasphemy case,” from the Press Trust of India, March...

“LIGNET put out a report, substantiated yesterday, that there sources got their information from Boeing sources, which is covert. Not that they got their information from the Boeing Company because they’re involved in the investigation, that the airplane was in Pakistan. That was confirmed by LIGNET on Monday and I got another source at LIGNET that confirmed it yesterday… I do believe that those people in Pakistan, in the ISI, those people who knew where Osama Bin Laden was and didn’t tell us. I believe those same elements could be involved with getting that airplane into a Pakistan air force...

Retired Lt. General Thomas McInerney was back on with Sean Hannity tonight and still stands by his original statements that missing MH370 landed and did not crash into the ocean. “I think those passengers have the potential to still being alive. And I believe that airplane landed. I believe the airplane has landed and I’ve listened to a lot of aviation experts and none of them know anything about radical Islam. And I think that was one of the major shortcomings to think that as well planned as this was, and you just went through it with Mr. Kay, on...

Full title - "BREAKING: Lt. Gen. McInerney Says #MH370 In Pakistan – “I Got A Source at LIGNET That Confirmed It Yesterday” (Video)" Retired Lt. General Thomas McInerney was on America’s News HQ today to once again discuss his theory that missing flight MH370 flew to Pakistan. McInerney and LIGNET Intel Group still believe the plane flew to Pakistan. Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, March 22, 2014, 2:26 PM Retired Lt. General Thomas McInerney was on America’s News HQ today to once again discuss his theory that missing flight MH370 flew to Pakistan. McInerney and LIGNET Intel Group still...

You Will Not Find This Video on Fox in Any Search. It was posted on the 19th and summarily removed by Fox due to Pressure From White House. Transcript: Tonight the Government of Malaysia is now reporting turning to Pakistan to help find the missing plane. That News comes as an intel group is claiming that a source within Boeing is claiming that this airplane is in Pakistan right now as we first reported Last night. The jet reportedly change course shortly after take off adding fuel to the hijacking theory, in other words they had made the change and...

Islamabad: A young woman in Pakistan’s Punjab province was allegedly kidnapped and forcibly married twice before being gang-raped and stripped naked in revenge for her brother having eloped with a girl from a different caste. Sanaullah, 22, had eloped with the daughter of a man who belongs to the Mallah caste, of the same village in Chiniot district

Soon after the Navy SEAL raid on Bin Laden’s house, a Pakistani official told me that the United States had direct evidence that the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, knew of Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. Colleagues at The Times began questioning officials in Washington about which high-ranking officials in Pakistan might also have been aware of Bin Laden’s whereabouts, but everyone suddenly clammed up. It was as if a decision had been made to contain the damage to the relationship between the two governments. “There’s no smoking gun,” officials in the Obama administration began to say. America’s...

Megyn Kelly broke this news tonight on The Kelly File. Intel group Langley Intelligence Group says its Boeing source says the plane manufacturer believes the missing Malaysian flight MH370 is inside Pakistan. A LIGNET analyst received information from a source at Boeing that the company believes the plane did land in Pakistan… Boeing spokesman Sean McCormack denied that Wednesday, telling LIGNET that “the Boeing Company does not have information that substantiates your claim.” Retired Lt. Col. Thomas McInerney was on with Megyn to discuss this theory. McInerney said the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing is about the same distance...

STATE DEPARTMENT — With Russia's most vocal critics imposing economic sanctions over Crimea, some of Moscow's allies are also questioning its actions in Ukraine. In Syria's civil war, China and Russia have together blocked tougher action against President Bashar al-Assad, denouncing foreign support for the rebels as a breach of Syrian sovereignty. Now, China has quietly split from Russia over Crimea -- on the same issue of sovereignty. "China always respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states. The Crimean crisis should be resolved politically under the frameworks of law and order. We call on all sides to remain...

Special operations sources have claimed that the terror leader was shot more than one hundred times in the fatal 2011 raid. A new report from a website known within the intelligence and armed services community claims that the sheer number of times that Osama bin Laden was shot is the reason why the government has never released photos of his dead body. Citing two confidential sources, The Special Operations Forces Situation Report tells how 'operator after operator took turns dumping magazines-worth of ammunition into Bin Laden’s body'. The site goes on to argue that while the Navy SEALs may have...