Free Republic

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...

PESHAWAR: According to a BBCUrdu report, Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani terrorist leader with ties to al Qaeda, was among those killed in the latest drone strikes in South Waziristan. The report quoted locals as saying that Kashmiri was killed in the strike that killed at least nine militants. Kashmiri was the chief of the Harkatul Jihad al-Islami (HJI), an organisation affiliated with al Qaeda. He is widely believed to have masterminded the attack on the PNS Mehran naval base in Karachi. A government official in Peshawar told BBCUrdu that although he had been receiving information regarding the death of Kashmiri...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – An Iraqi al-Qaida operative was believed to be one of 15 militants killed in two U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal belt along the Afghan border Monday, Pakistani intelligence officials said. The officials said the man, identified as Abu Zaid al-Iraqi, handled the terrorist group's finances in Pakistan. He was not known to be on any published U.S. lists of wanted al-Qaida leaders, and U.S. officials do not normally acknowledge the existence of the CIA-led missile program or talk about who is being killed. The two strikes, coming roughly 24 hours apart, were the first...

U.S. Citizen Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Provide Material Support to Al Qaeda Syed Hashmi, aka “Fahad,” pleaded guilty today in Manhattan federal court to conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda, announced Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Hashmi, 30, was arrested on June 6, 2006 at Heathrow Airport in London, shortly before he was to board a flight to Pakistan. He was later extradited to the United States; Hashmi is the first individual to be extradited from the United Kingdom to the United States on terrorism charges. According to the superseding indictment...

SNIPPET: "The premier English-language jihadi forum has members in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad..."

SNIPPET: "Hakeemullah Mehsud (left), the Leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. and Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al Balawi (right), the suicide bomber who carried out the attack at Combat Outpost Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan. The al Qaeda operative who killed seven US CIA operatives and guards, and a Jordanian intelligence official, was on a martyr's videotape with the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al Balawi, a Jordanian Islamist who was thought to have been turned against al Qaeda, appeared on a videotape with Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of...

Sherwangei, Pakistan (CNN) -- A passport bearing the name of Said Bahaji, a suspect linked to the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, has been found in a town captured by the Pakistani military. The passport was found in South Waziristan, where the Pakistani military has been battling to wrest territory from the Taliban in Pakistan. It contained a Pakistani visa issued in August 2001 showing that the bearer entered Pakistan on September 4, 2001, and appeared unusually new for a document eight years old. CNN has not independently confirmed its authenticity. The photo in the passport resembles...

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A missile struck a house in a Pakistani region known as a safe haven for al Qaeda militants early on Thursday, killing at least eight suspected militants, residents and intelligence officials said. The attack took place in near Kaloosha village in the South Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border. "The blast shook the entire area, about eight people were killed," Behlool Khan, a resident of the area, told Reuters. (Reporting by Hafiz Wazir; Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel)

At least 12 people, most of them Arabs, were killed when a missile struck a house early Thursday in a Pakistani tribal region, officials and residents said. Residents in Azam Warsak village in South Waziristan told AFP that the home was destroyed by a missile fired from a pilotless drone and the loud blast was heard miles away in the rugged valley. Security officials said they had received a report that a “guided missile” fired from neighbouring Afghanistan had hit a house belonging to a local tribesman known to have links with the Taliban.

Pakistani authorities say at least 56 people have been killed in a troubled tribal region near the Afghan border, when local Pashtun tribesmen clashed with foreign Al-Qaeda militants. Pakistan's Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said 54 of those deaths are from fighting today near Wana in the tribal region of South Waziristan. There was no immediate information about how many of the casualties are foreign fighters. But earlier today, authorities said at least 10 Uzbek fighters and one local resident were killed overnight during a battle near Wana. They said nine other Uzbeks were injured and one captured, and that foreign...