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Washington: Facing a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, the Obama administration seems to believe in a "buyout" formula which involves paying the militants to leave the outfit and reintegrate to the society. Hours before attending a solemn event to receive the flag-draped cases of 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, President Barack Obama signed a USD 680 billion defence appropriations bill, which will pay for military operations in the 2010 fiscal. The bill includes a Taliban reintegration provision under the Commander's Emergency Response Programme, which is now receiving USD 1.3 billion. CERP funding also...

Speaker Pelosi denies public access to Health Care Public Plan announcement. He is told he is not "authorized" by the Speaker's staff.

Quote: October 27, 2009 MAYBE MULLAH OMAR IS SIMPLY AFRAID OF THE CHINESE Vahid Brown has the lowdown on the dustup between al-Qaida Core and the Afghan Taliban Posted on 27 October 2009 @ 13:11 GMT

You tube video of Christians trying to ask Muslims questions at Arab Festival in Dearborn, MI. Police side with the Muslims.

KABUL (AFP) – Taliban gunmen stormed a UN guesthouse in Kabul Wednesday, killing at least eight people in a suicide attack as the Islamist militia signalled a bloody countdown to new Afghan elections next week. President Hamid Karzai ordered an urgent security upgrade for international organisations after the rampage, which left at least five expatriate UN staff dead in the worst assault on the world body's Afghanistan mission since 2001. The Obama administration and UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack, which the Afghan defence ministry said was the work of Pakistani Taliban dressed as police who struck the UN-approved...

Men stand in front of a building after a bomb explosion in Peshawar. ISLAMABAD—A powerful car bomb ripped through a market Wednesday in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 90 people hours after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Pakistan to smooth relations strained by terms of an American aid package for the key South Asian ally. Mrs. Clinton was meeting with officials in Islamabad, a three-hour drive from Peshawar, when the explosion went off. The bombing was the second attack to hit one of Peshawar's crowded markets this month; it sparked a fire in the...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — An explosion rocked a women's market in Pakistan's main northwest city of Peshawar on Wednesday, killing at least 16 people in the latest attack to shake the country as the army battles Islamist militants along the Afghan border. At least 35 people were wounded in the blast, police said. It coincided with a trip to Pakistan by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was in the capital, Islamabad, some three hours drive away. The explosion hit Peepl Mandi, a neighborhood in the city where many Shiite Muslims live. Police official Sajid Khan said it struck...

Although the Taliban in Afghanistan is getting stronger , Obama still believes that he is going to reach out to the "moderate" Taliban members, in order to turn the war around. His next brilliant move is to now pay off Taliban members, this comes just weeks after stating that Taliban members will be allowed to take part in the government of Afganistan. Because of Obama, who has the upper hand here?

At least five people have been killed and 35 wounded by a large blast in a market in Peshawar, Pakistani, local media say. Huge plumes of black smoke were seen drifting over the city. Pakistan has seen an increase in such attacks in recent weeks as the military carries out an operation against Taliban militants in South Waziristan. The blast comes as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton begins a visit to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Pakistani television showed footage of burning shops in Peshawar, in the northwest of the country, and ambulances rushing to the scene

KABUL — Taliban suicide gunmen stormed a UN hostel in Kabul Wednesday, killing six foreign staff in an assault the Islamist militia said marked the start of a bloody countdown to new Afghan elections. At least nine UN staff were also injured as gunfire and explosions rang out across the city in a smart residential district near Butcher Street close to popular shopping streets favoured by Westerners. Afghan police said the gunmen entered the UN-approved guesthouse in Kabul's Shar-e-Now district around dawn. Flames and heavy black smoke spewed into the sky as the security services closed off roads and surrounded...

Title only. Breaking.

Gunmen attacked a guest house used by U.N. staff in the Afghan capital of Kabul early Wednesday, killing at least seven people including three U.N. staff, officials said. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility, saying it was meant as an assault on the upcoming presidential election. Heavy gunfire reverberated through the streets shortly after dawn and a large plume of smoke rose over the city following the attack in the Shar-e-Naw district. Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman said seven people were killed, including some attackers. U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards confirmed that three U.N. staff were among the dead and one was...

A Taliban suicide bomber has killed seven people near a nuclear weapons complex in Pakistan's Punjab province. The suicide bomber detonated outside a security checkpoint near the Kamra Air Weapon Complex in the district of Attock, Geo News reported. Three security personnel and four civilians were killed in the blast, and 12 more were wounded. The attack is the latest in a string of suicide strikes and military assaults by the Taliban against Pakistan's security forces, the government, and civilians. Today the Taliban assassinated a senior general and his driver near the general's home in Islamabad. Yesterday the Taliban conducted...

Oct. 27: In an interview with TODAY’s Ann Curry, David Rohde, a New York Times reporter who escaped from the Taliban captors who held him for more than seven months, speaks out about the ordeal.

There are already more than 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan working with 200,000 Afghan security forces and police. It adds up to a 12-1 numerical advantage over Taliban rebels, but it hasn't led to anything close to victory. Now, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan is asking for tens of thousands more troops to stem the escalating insurgency, raising the question of how many more troops it would take to succeed. The commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the extra forces are needed to implement a new strategy that focuses on protecting civilians and depriving the militants of popular...

War Strategy: When Bush and Petraeus proposed the surge in Iraq, Democrats demanded that the general testify before Congress. So why has the Senate blocked a similar invitation to our commander in Afghanistan? Those with memories longer than the 24-hour news cycle recall that in the dark days of the Iraq War, David Petraeus was summoned to Washington to explain the surge strategy that would eventually lead to victory in Iraq. Democrats hoped for a show trial. MoveOn.org took out a full-page ad in the New York Times labeling the commanding general of our efforts in Iraq "General Betray-us." Then...

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's army pushed deeper into a Taliban sanctuary close to the Afghan border Tuesday, claiming to have killed 42 militants in the latest stage of an offensive against extremists blamed for relentless attacks in recent weeks . In the capital, gunmen attacked a high-ranking Pakistani army officer in the second targeted shooting against top military brass in less than a week, part of a wave of violence sweeping the country in apparent retaliation for the 11-day long offensive in South Waziristan. The army officer, and his mother who was traveling with him, escaped unhurt from the assault in...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Deliberations regarding a future strategy for Afghanistan need to include a consideration that the predominantly Afghan, Pashtun-based Taliban may have the capability of infecting other ethnic groups and becoming a greater transnational fundamentalist threat. It is well-known that the Taliban was spawned and gained support among the Pashtuns in the Kandahar area of southern Afghanistan. At that time, the population had grown weary of continuous fighting among mujahedin warlords and the general lawlessness following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Many of the Taliban recruits were young male graduates of the Islamic religious schools,...

"Taliban use kids in combat roles NATO troops wary of firing on children" BY MATTHEW FISHER, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE OCTOBER 26, 2009 SNIPPET: "A 12-year-old boy caught in the act Friday as he put a homemade bomb under a road in the volatile Zhari District grabbed a baby as a human shield to protect himself from attack from the United States helicopter that spotted him." SNIPPPET: "Among them were three blasts in Kandahar in the past few weeks in which as many as 12 Afghan children were blown up as they were being taught how to make or place improvised...

Clip 1) US B-1B Lancer drops a 2000 pound JDAM on Taliban hide-out in Afghanistan in support of British troops. Clip 2) Super high-def Vietnam compilation.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 2009 – Afghan and NATO forces have removed dozens of insurgents from fighting in Afghanistan in recent days, including a long-sought-after Taliban commander, military officials reported. Combined Afghan and International Security Assistance Force units killed at least two dozen insurgents during fighting in southern and eastern Afghanistan and detained numerous others. In operations yesterday: -- A combined force killed a dozen enemy militants in Kandahar province in an operation to interdict a Taliban commander and his unit believed to be responsible for attacks in the Arghandab district west of Kandahar City. The force coordinated an air strike...

The crucial Nov. 3 special election in upstate New York features two candidaties -- liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava and Democrat Bill Owens -- connected to the Working Families Party (WFP) which is the New York political arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). <snip> With both Big Labor and ACORN working to defeat the Conservative -- who is also being attacked by the national GOP Establishment -- Hoffman's campaign is sending out a nationwide call for volunteers to help match the "community organizers" being brought into the 23rd District by his major-party opponents. "We need boots...

Furious Afghans torched an effigy of US President Barack Obama and hurled stones at police today during a mass protest over allegations that Western troops set fire to a copy of the Koran. A crowd of around 1,000 demonstrators, mainly university students, marched through the streets of the capital KabulSNIP The demonstrators, almost all men, chanted: "Death to America, death to Jews and Christians!" as they burned a model of Obama and a United States flag. Some wore black ribbons on their foreheads, calling for a jihad.The BBC has more:SNIPThe US-led Nato force has denied the claims, saying it has...

MSNBC host Chris Matthews may now have the honor of having said the dumbest thing in the history of television. This past Thursday Matthews unfortunately allowed an imbecilic thought to pass from his brain to his mouth on his nationally televised cable news show. Here's the moment of insanity on video: Matthews: "The group in this country that most resembles the Taliban, ironically, is the Religious Right." It is a pet peeve of mine when a cable news host drops a bomb (no Taliban pun intended) of a statement right at the end of a segment and moves on to...

For years, the F-16 Fighting Falcons at Sumter's Shaw Air Force Base have trained to search out and destroy enemy missile and anti-aircraft artillery sites. "That's the big war," as Lt. Col. Ken Ekman, a Shaw squadron commander, put it recently. Now, Ekman and his S.C.-based unit - the 79th Fighter Squadron - are here, fighting a small war where they may be called on to fly close-air support for a donkey train carrying election ballots to a mountain village. ***Instead of hunting down enemy missile sites, the pilots use the multi-million-dollar electronic gear aboard their planes to find bombs...

The Pakistani army dealt a psychological blow to the Taliban yesterday after taking the home village of the insurgent leader Hakimullah Mehsud. The seizure of Kotkai after a three-day siege is the second strategic victory for the army in its week-old offensive into the mountainous region of South Waziristan, a stronghold for Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants. More than 30,000 troops, backed by helicopters, jet fighters and heavy artillery, are engaged in heavy fighting with 12,000 well-armed insurgents in the treacherous terrain bordering Afghanistan. So far 162 militants and 22 troops have been killed in what the Pakistani army has described...

A rising number of Western recruits, including Americans, are travelling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to train at paramilitary camps...

ISLAMABAD – Soldiers captured the strategically located hometown of Pakistan's Taliban chief Saturday after fierce fighting, officials said, the army's first major prize as it pushes deeper into a militant stronghold along the Afghan border. A suspected U.S. missile killed 22 people elsewhere in the northwest, but apparently missed a top Taliban figure, authorities said. Pakistan's eight-day-old offensive in the Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold of South Waziristan is considered its most critical test yet in the campaign to stop the spread of violent Islamist extremism in this nuclear-armed, U.S.-allied country. The army operation has prompted a wave of retaliatory attacks...

KABUL, Oct. 23, 2009 – A combined Afghan and international security force killed enemy fighters and wounded another yesterday after forcefully entering and searching a series of compounds in Afghanistan’s Wardak province. The compounds were known to be used by a Taliban commander and his group believed to be responsible for several attacks in the area. The combined force initially searched a building in the province’s Chaki Wardak district without incident. But after observing enemy activity in a nearby compound, the force pursued those suspected militants. The militants fired on the combined force as it approached, and the force returned...

Politicians love photo-ops. So when Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) appeared alongside Hamid Karzai as the beleaguered Afghan president announced that he would agree to a runoff election, it was hardly surprising. Kerry was doing what politicians do. Moreover, the senator was in Kabul to supplement the Obama administration's efforts to lean on Karzai to hold another presidential vote, given widespread evidence that the one held in August was rigged. When Karzai claimed victory then, his main opponent, former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, cried foul, a chorus of international criticism arose and an Afghan government infamous for its ineptitude and...

NATO Defense Ministers Endorse Wider Afghan Effort By THOM SHANKER BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — NATO defense ministers gave their broad endorsement Friday to the counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan laid out by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, increasing pressure on the Obama administration and on their own governments to commit more military and civilian resources to the mission. General McChrystal, the senior American and allied commander in Afghanistan, landed here early Friday to brief NATO defense ministers on his strategic review of an eight-year war in which the American-led effort has lost momentum to a tenacious insurgency. The closed-door session — which had...

Far Left crank Chris Matthews attacked Christians on his show yesterday. Matthews said Christians in the United States resemble the Taliban. When was the last time you read about a Christian suicide bomber in America, Chris? Chris forgot about the leftists who were arrested for planning terror attacks on the RNC and the several leftist eco-terror attacks. But, smearing Christianity is an easier argument for Matthews. Poor Chris. He must really be hurting that he wasn’t invited to the White House with fellow network hacks Olbermann and Maddow.

I STOOD in the bathroom of the Taliban compound and waited for my colleague to appear in the courtyard so we could make our escape. My heart pounded. A three-foot-tall swamp cooler — an antiquated version of an air-conditioner — roared in the yard a few feet in front of me. I feared that the guards who were holding us hostage might wake up and stop us. I feared even more that our captivity would drag on for years.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – A mine killed 16 wedding guests in Pakistan's tribal belt on Friday while a suicide bomber targeted an air force base, inflicting another reverse on the military in its war on the Taliban. A car bomb exploded outside a restaurant in the northwestern city of Peshawar, wounding 15 and underlining the threat to civilians in a nation where more than 190 people have died during Taliban-linked attacks in 19 days. The explosion ripped through the wedding party minibus in the Sorandara area of Mohmand, where security forces have been pressing an offensive against Islamist rebels for...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- On May 21, 2002, U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. Central Command, said to reporters, "I am pleased that our forces have begun training the Afghan National Army." Franks also stated that training the Afghan army will "certainly be one of our more important projects in the days, weeks (and) months ahead, because the national army of Afghanistan is going to be an essential element of their long-term security." On Sept. 21, 2006, U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, now President Barack Obama's national security adviser, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "By...

The Pakistani Taliban targeted an air base believed to be one of the country’s secret nuclear weapons facilities on Friday among a wave of suicide bombings that killed at least 25 people across the country. The attack on guard post at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex at Kamra, about 40 miles outside Islamabad, killed eight people and raising fears about the security of the nuclear-armed state’s arsenal. Officials were quick to deny that the facility, the major research centre for the air force, had links to the nuclear programme. However, Pakistan doesn’t specify which sites are involved in the programme and...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday joined the battle between former Vice President Dick Cheney and Obama administration officials over the strategy of the war in Afghanistan. Pelosi chided Cheney for asserting Wednesday that President Obama is "afraid" to make a decision about whether to ramp up war at the request of his military advisers or scale back the effort and focus on going after Al Qaeda in Pakistan, as some of his political advisers are urging. "That's really not a dignified statement," Pelosi said Thursday. "The president has a very difficult decision to make. I don't think that's a...

THE WEEKLY STANDARD just received a statement from Sarah Palin endorsing conservative Doug Hoffman for Congress: The people of the 23rd Congressional District of New York are ready to shake things up, and Doug Hoffman is coming on strong as Election Day approaches! He needs our help now. The votes of every member of Congress affect every American, so it's important for all of us to pay attention to this important Congressional campaign in upstate New York. I am very pleased to announce my support for Doug Hoffman in his fight to be the next Representative from New York's 23rd...

A suspected suicide bomber has killed six people outside Pakistan's main air force maintenance facility. Police said the attack took place near the Kamra aeronautical complex, 60km (35 miles) from the capital, Islamabad. The bomber blew himself up when he was stopped at a checkpoint outside the complex. Among the dead were two security officials. The attack comes as the Pakistani army continues its drive against Taliban bases in South Waziristan. A wave of attacks on Pakistani cities has killed nearly 185 people during the month of October alone. "It was a suicide attack, which killed six people, including four...

Is there no depth MSNBC's Chris Matthews won't sink to? Judging from a truly disgraceful comment he made on Thursday's "Hardball," the answer has got to be a resounding "NO!" -snip-

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2009 – A combined Afghan and international security force detained almost a dozen suspected militants in Afghanistan’s Khowst province today after searching a compound known to be used by a Haqqani terrorist organization commander and his element responsible for bombings and armed attacks in the area. The combined force searched compounds near Peru Kheyl village north of Khowst City after intelligence reports indicated militant activity there. The force detained the suspects, one of whom was identified as the sought-after Haqqani commander. In another operation today, a combined force detained two suspected militants after searching a compound in...

I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world. The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned. And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove...

Police in Pakistan say that unknown gunmen shot and killed a senior army officer and his driver in Islamabad. The attack is the second this week in the city and the violence is seen as retaliation for the ongoing military offensive against Taliban extremists in their stronghold of the South Waziristan region, near the Afghan border. Police say the early-morning attack took place in a residential part of the city, where assailants ambushed a military vehicle carrying a senior officer of the Pakistani military. An eyewitness says two men took part in the assault that instantly killed the driver and...

A strong earthquake has shaken buildings in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.1 and was centered in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan. That's according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake was felt in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The Pakistani army's push against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in the Mehsud tribal stronghold of South Waziristan has one paramount objective - to destroy the source of militant attacks in the country. The ground offensive that it launched in the region on Saturday is viewed by analysts as its most serious attempt so far to liquidate the militant network there. This conclusion is based on the tactics the army has adopted so far. Unlike previous operations which were invariably half-hearted, haphazard and abortive, it took its time to plan a thorough operation this time. StrongholdThe ground offensive comes after a...

October 20, 2009, 0:00 p.m. What Is Victory?If defeating the Taliban is not our goal, what is? By Andrew C. McCarthy Rarely has there been such a dramatic disconnect between rhetoric and reality. On Afghanistan, the national-security Right talks about “victory,� concerned Democrats talk about “success,� and Obama allies such as Sen. John Kerry talk about the “fulfillment of our mission.� They aren’t talking about the same thing. The somnolent press is content to court, rather than clarify, this confusion, but that’s no reason for the rest of us to go along for the ride.   What is “victory�...

On July 25, Najibullah Zazi, a lanky man in his mid-twenties, walked into the Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. The visit was captured on a store video camera. Wearing a baseball cap and pushing a shopping cart, Zazi appeared to be just another suburban guy.Of course, not many suburban guys buy six bottles of Clairoxide hair bleach, as Zazi did on this shopping trip--or return a month later to buy a dozen bottles of "Ms. K Liquid," a peroxide-based product. Aware that these were hardly the typical purchases of a heavily bearded, dark-haired young...

KABUL, Oct. 20, 2009 – Afghan and international security forces killed militants, detained several suspects and seized weapons today in Afghanistan, military officials reported. A combined force killed enemy militants and detained suspected militants after searching two compounds known to be used by a Taliban commander and his element in Wardak province’s Jaghatu district. The suspects are believed to be responsible for guiding and directing other militant elements to conduct attacks in the area. During the search, enemy militants displayed hostile intent outside of the compounds. The force used precision aerial fire to kill several armed militants posing a threat...

by thelastcrusade.org Muslims in Somalia now demand that women shake their breasts when they appear in public, so that inspectors may determine if they are wearing "un-Islamic" bras. The orders have been carried out at gunpoint by a group called Al Shabaab, who control of the streets of Mogadishu. If the women display an un-natural firmness, the inspectors feel their breasts to determine if the uplift is produced with the assistance of a bra. Often younger women must reveal their mammary glands to prove that they have not been corrupted by Western culture. The Daily Mail (London) reports that...

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT (Reuters) - The United States cannot wait for problems surrounding the legitimacy of the Afghan government to be resolved before making a decision on troops, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said. Gates, speaking to reporters on board a plane traveling to Tokyo, described the situation in Afghanistan as an evolutionary process that would not improve dramatically overnight, regardless of what course is taken following the country's flawed August election. "I see this as a process, not something that's going to happen all of the sudden," Gates said. "I believe that the president will have...