Free Republic

Recently, I was speaking with a friend of mine, a committed liberal and an equally committed member of the anti-Trump camp. Despising President Donald Trump is almost a default position in my Chicago-area community; however, my liberal friend has always impressed me as reasonable and well informed. Hence my particular consternation when he, in a most matter-of-fact way, said President Trump is costing us friends and influence around the world, as if it were an accepted truth. This was more annoying than surprising, because ever since Donald Trump took office, the mainstream media and their political allies have been working...

The father of Omar Mateen, identified by police as the man behind the carnage at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning, is an Afghan man who holds strong political views, including support for the Afghan Taliban. Seddique Mateen, who has been referred to as Mir Seddique in early news reports, hosted the “Durand Jirga Show” on a channel called Payam-e-Afghan, which broadcasts from California. In it, the elder Mateen speaks in the Dari language on a variety of political subjects. Dozens of videos are posted on a channel under Seddique Mateen's name on YouTube. A phone number and post office...

Kuwait City, 5 Feb. (AKI) - The US air raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Abu Layth al-Libi in Pakistan is reported to have also killed three other leaders from the terrorist network. According to the Kuwaiti daily, al-Watan, two Kuwaitis and a Libyan also died in the missile attack conducted by a Predator aircraft on January 25 in Mir Ali, in North Waziristan on the border of Afghanistan. The daily said the attack was aimed at what was believed to have been an al-Qaeda summit meeting. Abu Obeida Tawari al-Obeidi and Abu Adel al-Kuwaiti were reportedly there with al-Libi.Abu Adel...

Via NRO, nothing says “slow news Friday” like a lazy post devoted to half-assed speculation. On the one hand, he’s an old Democrat with friends in the Democratic establishment. He might conceivably have heard something from a friend who’s heard something from someone who’s in a position to know. On the other hand, I haven’t seen a single other liberal in media anywhere say anything about an October surprise. What’s most likely? That Bob Beckel, Fox News liberal, is somehow more tapped in to the White House than MSNBC? That lots of other lefties in media know what he’s talking...

Pakistani fighter jets have carried out air strikes against militant hideouts, killing dozens of fighters, officials in the north-west of the country say. The strikes were in the mountainous Dehgan area in the North Waziristan tribal district, a stronghold for Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants. ... No exact casualty figures were given. "The strikes were carried out based on confirmed reports about the presence of Uzbek and other militants in the area," an official said. It is the second set of strikes in the region this week, days after the airport attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, which killed at least...

MIRAMSHAH: After a nearly six month halt in the drone campaign, separate US aerial drones fired missiles at militant hideouts in pre-dawn strikes on Thursday just days after the Taliban launched a deadly attack on Karachi airport that killed 37 people. Two successive US drone strikes killed at least 16 suspected militants in Pakistan's northwest tribal area where pressure was building on Islamabad to react after the brazen attack. The first attack took place late on Thursday night when the unmanned US plane fired six missiles that hit a vehicle and a compound in Dargah Mandi village in North Waziristan,...

The Haqqani Network, the terrorist group that the U.S. command in Afghanistan says is its most formidable enemy — worse than the Taliban or al Qaeda — has operated for a dozen years across the border in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area with little to fear other than sporadic drone strikes. Now, even the drone strikes have stopped for the family-run gang that held Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five years. ... The Haqqani network maintains a safe haven in North Waziristan, Pakistan, across Afghanistan’s southeastern border. The Pakistani Army has consistently refused to launch a military operation in North...

Pak Army Always Blames Uzbeks–36 Out of 40 Bannu Bombers Were Allegedly IMU by 40 rebels killed in Waziristan include 36 aliens By Javed Hamim Kakar KABUL (PAN): Up to 36 foreigners were among 40 Taliban fighters killed during air strikes by Pakistani forces on Monday night and Tuesday in the troubled North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghanistan border, media reports said on Wednesday. Security officials told the Pakistani media 33 Uzbeks and three Germans were among those killed in the air strikes which appeared to be a tit-for-tat response to Taliban-claimed bombings in northwestern Bannu town and the...

Miran Shah, Militants attack on the shewa check post in North Waziristan on Wednesday morning; they target the check post with suicide bombers, in the result of the attack 4 security personals injured. According to the detail the incident occurred in the Wednesday early morning. Four security personnel were injured in the attack, security forces start firing after the attack. Local confirmed that they still heard the firing in the area. Abu Baseer the spokesman of Ansar Ul Mujahedeen took the responsibility of the suicide attack on FC check post and said that our attack will remain continues against security...

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday named Khan Syed Mehsud alias Sajna as its new chief, a day after a US drone strike killed its former leader Hakimullah Mehsud in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Tehrik-e- Taliban Pakistan's Shura (Council), media reports said. Most of the members of the council were present in the meeting held at an undisclosed location though all could not attend it.

The leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, has been killed in a drone strike, a high-ranking Taliban official has told the BBC. Mehsud became leader of the Pakistani Taliban in 2009, aged 30, after his predecessor died in a US drone strike.

Last week, Amnesty International released a report on U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, concluding that as many as 900 civilians might have been killed and 600 seriously injured in the attacks since 2004, when the controversial program began. The United States launched between 330 to 374 drone strikes in Pakistan between 2004 and September 2013, according to the report. And those strikes have created a culture of fear on the ground. "I wasn't scared of drones before," Nabeela, an 8-year-old whose grandmother, Mamana Bibi, was killed by a 2012 drone strike, says in the report. "But now when they fly...

Private Bergdahl - assuming he's still alive - is spending Christmas as a captive of the Taliban. His captors spent the last day or two uploading a video showing Private Bergdahl reading a statement. The video was divided into four segments and uploaded to YouTube on 25 December 2009. The YouTube account is:

COMBAT OUTPOST WILDERNESS, Afghanistan — The Taliban and its allies are plotting a bloody and spectacular end to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. Foreign fighters are pouring into the eastern part of the country to take on U.S. and allied forces in what will likely be the final fighting season for American troops here. Pakistani-based terror groups like the Haqqani Network and others are calling upon “every house, every family” to send fighters into Afghanistan, Afghan army commanders stationed at the American base in Paktia province told The Hill. “The madrassas are emptying" in Pakistan, added Lt. Col. David Hamann, who...

MIRAMSHAH: At least 17 people were killed and two others injured in a US drone attack which targeted a house in the North Waziristan tribal region late on Tuesday night. Sources told Dawn.com that the drone fired four missiles on the house near Miramshah bazaar in Sirai Darpakhel area, targeting the Haqqani residential compound and a car. The head commander Haji Shahrifullah of Haqqani, a militant network, is said to be safe, whereas 17 people were killed and two others injured in the attack. Intelligence sources confirmed the death toll. US officials consider the Haqqani network to be one of...

SNIPPET: "A seventh man, aged 20, was arrested on Thursday and continues to be questioned." SNIPPET: "Irfan Nasser, 30, from Sparkhill, and Irfan Khalid, 26, from Sparkbrook, are accused of travelling to Pakistan for terrorism training, including bomb making, and weapons and poison making; as well making a martyrdom video and planning a bombing campaign. Ashik Ali, 26, from Balsall Heath, and Rahi Ahmed, 25, from Moseley, face charges related to planning a bombing campaign in the UK, including constructing a home-made explosive device for terrorist acts and stating an intention to be suicide bombers. Two other suspects - Bahader...

An embattled former Obama administration appointee -- who was part of a group of attorneys accused of being terrorist sympathizers for defending "enemy combatants" -- has been hired for a post at the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn, officials confirmed today. Tali Farhadian was one of several private attorneys who created a rift between Republicans last spring when the Obama Administration assigned them to posts within the Justice Department. Although Farhadian was handling unrelated matters in Attorney General Eric Holder's office, a political watchdog group accused Obama of overloading the agency with officials sympathetic to enemy combatants. Their appointments even...

Till 2004, Pakistan was a peaceful country and suicide bombing was unheard of. The figure of terrorism-afflicted casualties began to rise from 2005 onwards and by 2007 the number rose to 3599 killed. The death toll has now jumped to 35000. While the total fatalities of ISAF in Afghanistan from 2001 till 30 September were 2670, which includes 1800 US soldiers, Pak Army alone has suffered 3500 deaths and injuries to 10,000 soldiers. Wear and tear of weapons, tanks, APCs, helicopters, guns and vehicles is substantial. Given the acute resource constraints, it is very difficult for Pak Army to replace...

The Obama administration declared Friday that the Pakistan-based Haqqani network of militants is a terrorist body despite misgivings about how the largely symbolic act could further stall planned Afghan peace talks or put yet another chill on the United States' already fragile counterterrorism alliance with Islamabad. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's decision, signed Friday ahead of a Sunday deadline set by Congress, bans Americans from doing business with members of the group and blocks any assets it holds in the United States. The order, which will go into effect within 10 days, completes an odyssey of sorts for the...

A US Army drone strike in March killed a German citizen who had joined the jihad in Pakistan. His death has the potential to reignite the debate over the legitimacy of air strikes by unmanned drones and may increase diplomatic tensions with the US. Diplomatic Powder KegOn the morning of March 9, 29-year-old Samir H. was in a large pickup truck in southern Waziristan when a remote-controlled US Army drone, several kilometers high, took aim at the vehicle. Reports indicate that at least one of the three rockets launched by the drone hit the target and destroyed the pickup truck...