Free Republic

Labourer whose blasphemy death sentence was overturned has been transferred to KarachiPakistani authorities have moved Asia Bibi, a Christian woman recently acquitted of blasphemy charges, to a new “secure area” and are barring her from leaving the country, a close friend and rights campaigner has claimed. Bibi, who spent eight years on death row, was transferred from a location near the capital to a house in the southern port city of Karachi, her friend Aman Ullah told the Associated Press. She and her husband are locked in a single room in a house where the door opens only “at food...

Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said Monday Pakistan must take on a substantive role in peace talks with the Taliban if the war in neighboring Afghanistan is to be ended. Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon Monday, Mr. Mattis demanded Islamabad provide explicit support for “all those who are trying to maintain peace” in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region. “We are looking for every responsible nation to support peace in the subcontinent and across this war in Afghanistan. … It is time for everyone to get on board,” Mr. Mattis said ahead of bilateral talks with Indian Defense Minister...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Former Mexican President Vicente Fox proposed on Wednesday the legalization of opium poppy production as a way to help end bloody turf battles fought by drug cartels in various parts of the country. Fox served as president from 2000-2006 with the center-right National Action Party but has since distanced himself from the party. In the past, he has also advocated for the legalization of marijuana. “The plants themselves are not harmful, we make them harmful, (especially) the criminals who use them for evil purposes,” Fox said at a pro-marijuana event in the capital. He also implored...

Activists from various religious parties thronged the Faisal Chowk (Charing Cross Chowk) on Mall Road on Saturday afternoon on the call of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYR) chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi on the social media following the government’s crackdown on the participants of the protest sit-in at Faizabad Interchange in Islamabad on the orders of the Islamabad High Court (IHC). Surprisingly, there was no police presence in the most sensitive location in Lahore which houses the Punjab Assembly, headquarters of the Lahore Police, and provincial headquarters of the country’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). ... One of the...

(QUETTA, Pakistan) — Two suicide bombers attacked a church in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Sunday, killing eight people and wounding 42 others, officials said. The Islamic State group later claimed responsibility for the attack. Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister for the southwestern Baluchistan province, said hundreds of worshippers were attending services at the church ahead of Christmas. He said the attackers clashed with security forces, with one assailant killed at the entrance while the other made it inside. [snip]

The Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement by its Amaq news agency. It was one of the group’s deadliest attacks against religious minorities in Pakistan this year, following a blast at a Sufi shrine in February that killed more than 70 people. Initial reports suggested that two assailants had approached the church before the attack. Officials said security personnel shot one to death while another reached the gate of the main hall. Authorities said they were searching for two other suspects believed to be accomplices. Rescue teams reached the church to evacuate the dead...

Why Syria Can't Be Fixed The root cause of the conflict is Islam. December 17, 2015 Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. Obama is betting the last of his foreign policy cred on beating ISIS by fixing Syria through a peace process that brings together Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and just about everybody who is anybody in the international terrorism and regime change racket to fight the ISIS war that he doesn't want to fight. There's just one little problem. Nobody on the guest list...

A group behind assaults on Shiites in Pakistan has claimed responsibility for tandem attacks on a university bus and a hospital that killed at least 24. The Sunni extremist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi announced on Sunday that it had sent a female suicide bomber to strike the bus in Quetta, capital of the restive Balochistan province, killing 14 students from a women's university near a Shiite neighborhood on Saturday. About 90 minutes later, a follow-up attack on the hospital treating survivors left at least 11 dead and led to a prolonged gun battle between security forces and militants occupying part of the...

Tarek Fatah, a Pakistani Muslim, has a long history of making comments which outrage Pakistani Muslims. Here he hits the nail on the head about Pakistani Muslim dysfunctionality (i.e. they hate the West which is so kind to them, but love the Arabs who spit in their face.