Free Republic

The head of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party was executed early Wednesday for his role in acts of genocide and war crimes during the country’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971, a senior government official said. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said Motiur Rahman Nizami, the 73-year-old leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was hung at 12:10 a.m. Wednesday inside Dhaka central jail amid tight security. […] Nizami is the fifth senior official from opposition parties to be executed since 2013 for war crimes carried out during the 1971 war. Three other senior members of Nizami’s Jamaat-e-Islami party and a top leader of...

Bangladesh hanged Islamist party leader Motiur Rahman Nizami on Wednesday for genocide and other crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan, the law minister said, a punishment that risked provoking an angry reaction from his supporters. Nizami, head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was hanged at Dhaka Central jail after the Supreme Court rejected his final plea against a death sentence imposed by a special tribunal for genocide, rape and orchestrating the massacre of top intellectuals during the war. Nizami, 73, a former legislator and minister, was hanged at 12.01 a.m. local time, Law Minister Anisul Haq told...

Following the swearing in of London’s first Muslim mayor, many of the city’s buses will sport advertisements that read “Subhan Allah,” which translates to “Glory be to God.” The paid advertisements are part of a push by England’s largest Islamic charity group, “Islamic Relief,” to help victims of the Syrian war. The ads will run throughout the Muslim holy week of Ramadan. …

Uncut diamond weighs in at 404 carats compared with Kohinoor’s 105.602 caratsEven as the governments of India, Pakistan and even Afghanistan have all laid a claim on the world-famous Kohinoor diamond that is set in the front of UK’s Queen Mother’s Crown, it is Dubai that can be called home to one of the world’s rarest and largest rough diamonds even discovered. The astonishing rough diamond in Dubai is characterised not only by its sheer size – an impressive 404 carats – but also uniquely by its colourlessness and flawless clarity. The cut-down Kohinoor, on the other hand, weighs 105.6...

Ever since the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, critics have contended that more people were involved than Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. A recent federal lawsuit alleges that Iraqi agents also played a role and McVeigh’s former defense attorney claims that prior to the bombing Nichols made contact with international terrorists. In a special report CBS 11’s Steve Narisi says the trail some investigators are following leads to the Philippines. “The U.S. Government has contended all along that any link between Nichols and Islamic extremists is strictly coincidental. During Nichols and McVeigh’s trial, the court didn’t allow...

A stunning new report showed how Pakistan's top spy agency may have secretly poisoned a CIA chief in the days and weeks after the U.S. raid that killed Usama Bin Laden in 2011. The now-retired CIA station chief in Pakistan, Mark Kelton, had come down with a mysterious illness that left him in severe pain, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Current and former U.S. officials told the newspaper they suspected poisoning after attempts to treat him outside Pakistan failed. Those officials said Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, harbored grudges against diplomats, journalists and other people the country considered opponents....

The United States has informed Pakistan it will have to pay for eight American F-16 fighter jets itself after members of Congress raised objections to the proposed deal that would have seen the U.S sponsoring part of the purchase. The deal, estimated to be worth about $699 million USD, was approved by the U.S in February whereby the U.S would assist Pakistan with $430 million USD in aid to help finance the purchase. The deal involved up to eight F-16 fighter jets, along with radar and other equipment. However, this week, members of Congress voiced their unhappiness over the deal...

Stung by Donald Trump’s assertion that as president he would get Pakistan to release “in two minutes” the doctor who the U.S. says helped to track down Osama bin Laden, a Pakistani minister said Monday his country was not a U.S. colony and dismissed U.S. aid as “peanuts.” “Contrary to Mr. Trump’s misconception, Pakistan is not a colony of the United States of America,” Interior Minister Chaudry Nisar Khan said in a statement. “Shakil Afridi is a Pakistani citizen, and nobody else has the right to dictate to us about his future,” Khan said. “He should learn to treat sovereign...

The radical Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has pursued an Islamic Caliphate since 1953, held a massive conference in Ramallah on Saturday, calling upon the armies of Jordan and Egypt to intervene directly and “free Palestine." Thousands participated in the event, which was billed as “Tent of Believers: the Caliphate Through the Path of the Prophet, and the Tent of Hypocrites, Heretics, and Imperialists." Black-and-white flags bearing the pledge of allegiance to Allah and Mohammed were waved while participants chanted slogans calling for the “liberation” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. “Officers and soldiers, break down the borders [of Israel],"...

Is this a Obama Administration mistake, asking Congress to pay for their F-16'S? The United States has told Pakistan it will have to finance the purchase of U.S. F-16 fighter jets itself after members of the U.S. Congress objected to the use of government funds to pay for them. The U.S. government said in February it had approved the sale to Pakistan of up to eight F-16 fighter jets built by Lockheed Martin Corp LMT.N, as well as radar and other equipment in a deal valued at $699 million. However, Republican Senator Bob Corker said he would use his power...

The US will no longer subsidise the sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, a senior state department official has told the BBC. The decision means that Pakistan will have to pay more than $700m (£480m) - two-and-a-half times the original cost - if it wishes to buy the aircraft. It comes after Congress refused to approve funding for the deal. Some US lawmakers had accused Pakistan of not doing enough to fight militants. India also objected to the sale. However, Pakistan has argued that the jets are needed for anti-terror operations, and so the US should help with...

“I started scorpion smoking in the mid-'60s,” recalls 74-year-old Sohbat Khan. It was during General Ayub Khan’s era, and Khan was only 20 years old. He would frequent the famous Jalil Kabab house in Peshawar, which is how he met the vendor who sold scorpions worth Re 1 or Rs 2 right next to the eatery. The men got their supply from the Matani area, which is rich in scorpions because of its insufferably hot weather. Khan says he has quit smoking scorpions. His eyes are sunken from years of addiction, and his pale face and hollow cheeks betray a...

Just one day ahead of the anniversary of the worst riot Baltimore had seen in more than 40 years, its residents will head to the polls to determine who will lead the city for the next four years. […] Shortly after the April 27, 2015, unrest, Democratic Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake instituted a mandatory 10 p.m. curfew. Four months later, she announced she wouldn’t seek re-election. The open race attracted a flood of hopefuls declaring their candidacy; before the Feb. 3 deadline passed, 13 Democrats jumped into the primary. The two most politically entrenched candidates emerged as front-runners: Sheila Dixon, who...

On Capitol Hill, Representative Chris Van Hollen is, literally and figuratively, a Democratic fair-haired boy. An American son of diplomats born while his parents served in Pakistan, he has used his fund-raising savvy, policy smarts and easy manner to position himself, party elders assumed, as a potential Democratic speaker of the House. Instead, Mr. Van Hollen, now running for the Senate in his home state of Maryland, is fighting for his survival in an identity politics primary that raises an explosive question: Should a white man, or a black woman, inherit the seat held for 30 years by Barbara A....

Textbooks in Pakistan that are used to teach about 41 million children, negatively portray religious minorities such as Christians and Hindus, referring to them as "nefarious, violent, and tyrannical by nature." (Reuters/Kham)Third-grade level students attend class at the Mashal Model School on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. "Pakistan's public school textbooks contain deeply troubling content that portrays non-Muslim citizens as outsiders, unpatriotic, and inferior; are filled with errors; and present widely-disputed historical 'facts' as settled history," said Robert George in a press release. George is the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). A study done by...

For a record 14th year in a row, the State Department has overruled the advice of an independent statutory watchdog and decided not to blacklist Pakistan for religious freedom abuses. The decision not to designate Pakistan a “country of particular concern” under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) comes despite its government’s continuing rejection of calls to amend or rescind the world’s most notorious blasphemy laws — which carry the death penalty and are frequently used to target Christians and other minorities. It also comes just days after a new U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) report highlighted...

New Delhi: India's Light Combat Aircraft Tejas, which was several years in the making, has now caught the attention of foreign buyers, with Sri Lanka and Egypt evincing interest in the indigenously built fighter jet. Sri Lanka had recently rejected Pakistan's JF-17 aircraft built with Chinese help, while Egypt had last year signed a contract for 24 French-made Rafale fighter jets. The two countries are interested in the current version of the Tejas and not the upgraded one which will be rolled out later. However, state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the manufacturer of Tejas, is focusing on delivering the aircraft...

British Docu Film based on in depth survey on current beliefs of British Muslims. Hosted by Trevor Phillips.

A new study released Tuesday found that Pakistan’s public school textbooks negatively portray the country’s religious minorities, including Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis, as “untrustworthy, religiously inferior, and ideologically scheming.” […] The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) sponsored the study, which was conducted by the Pakistan-based NGO Peace and Education Foundation (PEF). The study found 70 new instances of bias in addition to finding that some problematic content found in a 2011 study conducted by USCIRF had remained and even been expanded upon. “Pakistan’s public school textbooks contain deeply troubling content that portrays non-Muslim citizens as outsiders, unpatriotic, and...

Caption - To establish a caliphate, al-Hanif promises to topple Shiekh Hasina government in Bangladesh. ISIS vows to implement 'sharia' law in India. Islamic State (ISIS) has made new threat to send its fighters from Pakistan and Bangladesh to carry out 'guerrilla attacks' in India. In a recent interview carried by Dabiq magazine, the 'amir' of ISIS fighters in Bangladesh, Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif has vowed to wipe out Hindus and implement 'sharia' law in India and Bangladesh. al-Hanif also revealed the terror group is currently training fighters in Bangladesh and Pakistan to launch attacks on India and is seeking...