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Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada marked the fourth anniversary of their return to power by warning Afghans of "divine punishment" if they are ungrateful for the group's rule. Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada warned Friday that God would severely punish Afghans who are ungrateful for Islamic rule, marking the fourth anniversary of the group's return to power with threats against those who oppose their governance. Akhundzada, who is seldom seen in public, said in a statement that Afghans had endured hardships and made sacrifices for almost 50 years so that their interpretation of the Islamic law, known as Sharia, could be established....

"Israel is likely to launch another war with Iran before December--perhaps even as early as late August" Trita Parsi-"Foreign Policy' Commentary 8/11/2025... "So here is the great news. The moment your country is free Israel's top water experts will flood into every Iranian city... We will help Iran recycle water...we'll help Iran desalinate water... I urge you to be bold and brave...take to the streets...protest tyranny" Portions Of Israeli Prime Minister's Video Message To The People Of Iran 8/12/2025... The next round of the Israel-Iran War is on the way with signs of US-Israeli activity to appease nations neighboring Iran...

***Kabul is running dry, withered by scarcer rainfalls and snow melts and drained by unregulated wells. It has become so dry that its six million people could be without water by 2030 — and are now fighting about it. Its water reserves are emptying nearly twice as quickly as they are getting replenished. The Taliban administration, short of cash, has so far been unable to bring water from nearby dams and rivers to the choking city. *** Kabul, surrounded by snowy mountains and crossed by three rivers, had never been known as a dry city. But while its population has...

With muslim families having nearly three times as many children as native Austrians, the country's demographic composition is changing rapidly.. New figures show that women from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq living in Austria have an average birth rate almost three times higher than that of Austrian-born women, according to data from the country’s Statistical Yearbook on Migration and Integration. The report finds that Austrian-born women have an average of 1.22 children. Among women not born in Austria, the figure rises to 1.57. However, the figure among some countries of origin rises significantly. Those born in the former Yugoslavia average 1.94...

A few months before he was killed, Dumas gave Huff a USB drive with a letter naming soldiers involved in a wider network trafficking opiates from Afghanistan. Huff, who read the letter, called it an "insurance policy" and "seriously incriminating shit." Three other people independently mentioned the letter to Harp on the record. After Huff was arrested, the USB drive was seized by the Winston-Salem Police Department—which told Harp that the drive was completely empty.

SEATTLE (AP) - The federal judge who sentenced an Algerian terrorist to 22 years in prison for attempting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on the eve of the millennium wildly abused his discretion, said prosecutors who had sought a much longer sentence. Customs agents in Port Angeles, Wash., caught Ahmed Ressam, 38, with explosives in the trunk of his rental car when he drove off a ferry from British Columbia in December 1999. The scare prompted the cancellation of millennium celebrations at Seattle's Space Needle. At Ressam's sentencing last summer, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour used the opportunity...

AP: Administration Freed Terror Suspect By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Nabil al-Marabh was No. 27 on the FBI (news - web sites)'s list of terror suspects after Sept. 11. He trained in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s militant camps, sent money to a roommate convicted in a foiled plot to bomb a hotel and boasted to an informant about plans to blow up a fuel truck inside a New York tunnel, FBI documents allege. The Bush administration set him free — to Syria — even though prosecutors had sought to bring criminal cases against him and judges...

A federal judge in New York has ordered a Lebanese national transferred to Minneapolis to face two counts of making false statements to federal investigators. The U.S. attorney's office in Minneapolis says Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi is charged with lying about his role in sending radio and communications equipment to Pakistan and elsewhere. He's also accused of lying about his role in helping another person illegally obtain a Massachusetts driver's license. That person was later convicted in Jordan in a bombing plot. The charges revealed Friday deal only with accusations of lying — not with the underlying crimes Elzahabi allegedly lied...

A federal judge has denied terror suspect Mohamed Elzahabi's request for an acquittal or new trial. Elzahabi was convicted in August of possessing and using a fraudulent immigration document to get a job in Minnesota. Evidence submitted during the trial showed Elzahabi had paid an exotic dancer in Houston to marry him so he could obtain the green card. U-S District Judge John Tunheim wrote that a reasonable jury could find Elzahabi guilty. Elzahabi was arrested as part of a terrorism investigation. The F-B-I says he acknowledged that he attended a jihad training camp, fought in Afghanistan as part of...

Since returning to office in January 2025, President Donald Trump has shown a marked shift in his approach to South Asian geopolitics, displaying what analysts describe as a more favorable stance toward Pakistan while simultaneously straining relations with India. This represents a significant departure from decades of U.S. foreign policy that had increasingly favored New Delhi as a strategic counterweight to China. The most striking aspect of this policy shift appears to be intertwined with the Trump family’s business ventures. World Liberty Financial (WLF), founded in 2024, is no ordinary fintech startup. The company is 60% owned by Donald Trump’s...

News of Abdul Niazi’s death arrived in a chilling phone call. It was March 26, nearly the end of Ramadan, and his wife wanted to know when to expect her husband, a former U.S. military interpreter who lost both legs in a bomb blast in Afghanistan and became one of Houston’s most well-known advocates for new Afghan migrants. It was almost time to break the day’s fast, recalled Niazi’s cousin, but he hadn’t returned home. So she called his cellphone. “I’m not your husband,” the man on the other end of the line said, according to Rizwanullah Niazi, Niazi’s cousin....

The Debate This 16th Century Battle Created the Modern Middle East The pivotal legacy of the Battle of Chaldiran still reverberates 500 years later. Akhilesh Pillalamarri By Akhilesh Pillalamarri August 21, 2014 This 16th Century Battle Created the Modern Middle East Credit: Wikimedia Commons Chaldiran (چالدران) today is a small, sleepy town in northwestern Iran near the Turkish border. Yet, nearly five hundred years ago to the day, on August 23, 1514, the plains outside of Chaldiran groaned under the weight of men and horses and thundered with the sound of cannon-fire and muskets. The Battle of Chaldiran is one...

National Resources Limited claims massive new gold and copper discovery, raising hopes for a mining bonanza and fears of local conflict At the Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum 2025, Muhammad Ali Tabba, chairman of National Resources Limited (NRL) and CEO of Lucky Cement, unveiled what he claimed are hitherto unknown substantial gold and copper reserves in Balochistan’s Chagai district. Announced in the company of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief General Muhammad Asim Munir, Tabba’s claimed discovery signals a potential turning point for Pakistan’s laggard mining industry at a time global gold prices are touching record highs of over...

Donald Trump recently announced that the United States would help Pakistan develop its "massive oil reserves," suggesting it could export oil to India in the future. In response, Baloch leader Mir Yar Baloch has written an open letter to the US president, highlighting how encouraging the exploitation of Balochistan's oil reserves would make the US complicit in enabling ISI to enhance its global terror networks. In his letter, the Baloch leader warned against allowing Pakistan's radicalised military and rogue ISI, long accused of sponsoring Al-Qaeda and various proxy groups responsible for the deaths of thousands of US soldiers in Afghanistan,...

U.S. case against Muslim scholar is religious attack: defense 04/18/2005 By MATTHEW BARAKAT / Associated Press The government's prosecution of a prominent Islamic scholar accused of recruiting for the Taliban in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks is an assault on religious freedom, a defense lawyer said Monday during the trial's closing arguments. "The government wants you to think Islam is your enemy," said Edward MacMahon, who represents Ali al-Timimi, 41, of Fairfax. "They want you to dislike him so much because of what he said that you'll ignore the lack of evidence." Prosecutors, on the other hand, said...

The move to develop the Amu Darya field aligns with the Taliban’s goal of self-sufficiency, but can the cash-strapped regime go it alone?In late July, Afghanistan’s Taliban-run government decided to pursue unilateral development of the Amu Darya oil field, at least for the time being. It seems unlikely the cash-strapped regime will be able to maximize the potential of the oil field without foreign investment, but it will still be able to collect millions of dollars in revenue by going it alone. The move aligns with the Taliban’s oft stated goal of self-sufficiency. However, international investors may be troubled by...

Taliban fighters have been brought to the UK on secret airlift flights after the Afghanistan data breach which was revealed by the Mail. This newspaper revealed earlier this month a British military official catastrophically wrongly shared a database of 100,000 Afghans who had applied for sanctuary in the UK. The scheme was set up for those who worked with British forces to flee the murderous Taliban - so the disastrous leak amounted to giving a 'kill list' to the vengeful jihadist warlords. The breach was discovered by the Mail in August 2023 - and so far, 18,500 of the Afghans...

When I rode in a Blackhawk Helicopter in Afghanstan.

Across Europe, things feel increasingly fragile. As governments lose control of basic order and the state becomes rapidly incapable of maintaining law and order, this isn’t so much a ‘clash of civilisations’ as the West quietly rolling over and letting itself die. Today, it was announced that Germany will be working alongside the Taliban. Yes, those same extremist Islamists that NATO forces—including Germany’s—spent years fighting in Afghanistan. The aim here is to facilitate the deportations of Afghan criminals living in Germany. Despite not officially recognising the Taliban regime, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government will allow two Taliban officials to work at...

A remarkable image taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) offers a breathtaking view of three glaciers merging into one massive ice mass in the Karakoram mountain range. These glaciers, located in one of Earth’s most remote and contested regions, are gaining ice volume despite the warming temperatures that are threatening glaciers worldwide. A Rare Glacial Phenomenon The image showcases the merging of the Lolofond glacier, the Teram Shehr glacier, and the Siachen glacier. Situated in the Karakoram mountains, which straddle the borders of India, Pakistan, China, and Afghanistan, these glaciers are part of the Karakoram anomaly....