Free Republic

While the US is focusing on security for the homeland and strategies to defeat ISIS, the Taliban in Afghanistan are now on the verge of a huge victory; the capture of Helmand province. Helmand is one of the largest provinces in Afghanistan and has been considered the Taliban's home territory. British and American soldiers fought for years to keep the Taliban in check in the province. But now, with NATO troops on the sidelnes and out of combat, Afghan security forces are finding it increasingly difficult to hold on. Reuters: Afghanistan's Helmand province could fall to the Taliban after...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- New Orleans is poised to make a sweeping break with its Confederate past as city leaders decide whether to remove prominent monuments from some of its busiest streets. With support from Mayor Mitch Landrieu, a majority on the City Council appears ready to take down four monuments, including a towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Their ordinance has sparked passionate responses for and against these symbols, and both sides will get one more say at a special council meeting before Thursday's vote.

The decision to refer the case of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl to a general court martial on charges of desertion by Gen. Robert B. Abrams, the head of Army Forces Command at Ft. Bragg, N.C., shows there remains at least one general not cowed by President Obama's purge of command officers deemed insufficiently subservient to his policies of appeasement and unilateral disarmament. As Breitbart reported: Bergdahl, who was kidnapped by the Taliban following his abandonment of a forward operating base in Afghanistan, was charged this year with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. If charged with the latter, he could potentially...

<p>Late last month in "Russia's Mid-East Takeover Continues As Afghanistan Requests Military Assistance From Moscow," we noted, with some amusement, that Kabul was set to request a weapons delivery from Russia to aid in the fight against the Taliban. "Afghanistan, battered by worsening security, is reaching out to an old ally and patron—Russia—just as the Kremlin is seeking to reassert its position as a heavyweight on the world stage," WSJ reported, on the way to detailing a request from President Ashraf Ghani who "asked Moscow for artillery, small arms and Mi-35 helicopter gunships for his country's struggling military."</p>

Fifty people have died in an attack at a market bazaar and a school near Kandahar airport that began late Tuesday, Afghan officials said.... .....The Taliban took responsibility for the attack. The assault occurred hours after a "Message to Obama" was posted to a video site, purportedly of Taliban suicide attackers warning that U.S. troops would not be safe in Afghanistan.

<p>U.S. and Qatari officials began talks Wednesday about extending security assurances for five senior Taliban members who were released from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and whose transfer to Qatar triggered an outcry on Capitol Hill.</p> <p>The talks could lead to an extension of at least some aspects of a one-year arrangement that required Qatar to keep the former prisoners under supervision and ban them from leaving. They could also lead to the former detainees being transferred to another country, according to individuals familiar with the discussions. The agreement expires at the end of May.</p>

The head of a powerful House panel is threatening to withhold defense funding over the department's alleged stonewalling in a probe of the controversial swap of five Taliban leaders for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had initially pledged to respond to questions, when lawmakers first demanded to know why the Pentagon had not given Congress the requisite 30-day notice before proceeding with the May 31 prisoner trade. But nearly a year later, the Pentagon has released only a trickle of highly redacted emails from before the swap. Republican lawmakers now plan to attempt the unusual step of...

Should Daesh strengthen its presence in Afghanistan, the United States could find common ground with the terrorist group, also known as ISIL, to counter Moscow, Beijing and Tehran, Iranian political scientist Pir Mohammas Mollazehi told Sputnik. If Daesh loses control over its caliphate in Iraq and Syria, it could well try to expand into what is known as the Greater Khorasan region. "They will use Afghanistan as a launching pad" to take this area under control, the analyst said. Apparently, this process has already started. "Daesh is already present in Afghanistan. Militants have been strengthening their presence in the provinces...

The Taliban claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack on a guest house near the Spanish embassy in Kabul on Friday, and said fighting was still going on at the scene. Gunfire was reported immediately following the explosion, in a heavily protected area of the capital close to many foreign embassies and government buildings. Officials said police were on the scene. At least three insurgents appeared to be involved in the attack, a police official said. A Taliban spokesman said the attack targeted "an invader's guest house". At least seven people were brought to a hospital operated by the aid...

There's been a lot of discussion over the FBI's deployment of divers at Seccombe Lake, which is located in a park near the Inland Regional Center, where Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot and killed 14 people. In a news conference held around 3 p.m. PST, David Bowdich, Assistant Director of the FBI's Los Angeles office, said that they were following up on a lead that indicated the two shooters came into the area. He also added that he is not discussing what the dive team is looking for at present, though he reiterated his promise that this investigation will be a...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- A Taliban assault on Afghanistan's Kandahar International Airport has so far left 37 civilians and Afghan security forces dead and another 35 injured. Nine Afghan Taliban militants have died. Several people, including women and children, were taken hostage in Tuesday's attack. Some degree of fighting continued Wednesday, but it is unclear if the Taliban threat has ended. The headquarters for the joint NATO and Afghan military effort is in the airport. The Taliban militants wearing suicide vests breached the front gate of the facility in what a pro-Taliban website referred to as an attack...

"Combat Effectiveness" Being Degraded by Obama's Military Policies By evaluating an overwhelming amount of evidence that has been building for 6 ½ years, the obvious conclusion personnel with extensive military experience will come to, is that Obama’s military policies have been degrading the finest US military fighting force in history. Over the last 6 ½ years, the US Armed Forces has been hollowed out by Obama, his Social Experiment On Diversity has severely fractured unit cohesiveness, his “Politically Correct Policies” have negatively affected unit morale, and the “Combat Effectiveness” of the US military is being degraded. Tip of the spear...

A joint Afghan-U.S. special forces operation freed at least 40 Afghan prisoners from a Taliban prison in the southern Helmand province, authorities said Friday. The troops carried out a helicopter assault on the prison in Nawzad district Thursday night, according to a statement from U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The operation freed 40 prisoners, who were captured Afghan police, army and border police. No U.S. ground forces were involved in the raid, Fox News confirmed.

Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour has been wounded in a gunfight at a meeting of militants in the Pakistani city of Quetta, reports say.

<p>Pakistan Wednesday hanged four men linked to the Taliban's massacre of more than 130 schoolchildren, with parents of victims saying they deserved "no forgiveness" as the attack anniversary approached.</p> <p>The executions, which officials said were carried out Wednesday morning at a prison in the northwestern city of Kohat, were the first in connection with the December 16 attack on an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar. The army has put the final toll at 151 killed, 134 of them children.</p>

The Caribbean island of St Maarten - part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands - is an important centre for international drug trafficking. The island might also be involved in financing terrorism in the Middle East and Afghanistan. These are two conclusions reached in a confidential report about to be published by the Dutch Research and Documentation Centre (RDC). The report, "Organised crime and law enforcement on St. Maarten", is due to be presented to the Antillean Justice Minister David Dick on Monday, 8 October, but its conclusions are already common knowledge. The RDC itself has declined to comment until...

File picture of former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. (Agence France-Presse) LAHORE: Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has admitted in an interview that Islamabad supported and trained groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the 1990s to carry out militancy in Kashmir. The former army chief has also said that Lashkar leaders like Hafiz Saeed and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi enjoyed the status of heroes at that time. Speaking to Pakistani news channel Dunya News on Sunday, Mr Musharraf said, "In the 1990s, the freedom struggle began in Kashmir...At that time, Lashkar-e- Taiba and 11 or 12 other organisations were formed. We supported...

Taliban fighters aren't just making gains on the battlefield: They're also bleeding away a revenue source that is crucial for Afghanistan to pay for its military without US help. The Afghan government will earn about $30 million in 2015 from its mineral sector for the third straight year, far short of a previous projection of $1.5 billion, according to Mines and Petroleum Minister Daud Shah Saba. That's also a quarter of what smugglers -mostly linked to the Taliban and local warlords -earn annually selling rubies and emeralds, he said.

A former British stronghold in Helmand has fallen to the Taliban just 12 months after UK combat troops left the province and civilians are fleeing the nearby provincial capital, fearing insurgents will soon move on the town. The heavy fighting north west of Lashkar Gah and unravelling of security in areas UK troops fought bloody battles to secure comes days before the first anniversary of Britain’s withdrawal of combat troops from Afghanistan. The assault also comes only three weeks after the Taliban captured the northern city of Kunduz in their greatest military victory since 2001. A Western official said Lashkar...

Donald Trump is right: America's leaders are stupid. They're nothing but a bunch of losers. Well, at least when it comes to Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's the only conclusion to be reached following two big developments this week. The first was President Barack Obama's announcement that the United States will decelerate its military drawdown from Afghanistan. Instead of preserving only a small force of about 1,000 troops, the new plan will station 9,800 in the country until 2016 and 5,500 into 2017. Their mission will be limited to training Afghan forces and supporting counterterrorism operations. This will help promote, in...