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(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Among the most tantalizing mysteries surrounding Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s departure from his U.S. military base in 2009 is this: Was he trying to find the Taliban? Or did he simply wander away and get captured? Politicians and members of the military have criticized the Obama administration’s decision to swap five jailed Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, saying the soldier may have deserted. Until now, few details have emerged about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance from his base. But The Washington Post has reached Afghan villagers who spotted Bergdahl shortly after he slipped away from his base. To them, it’s clear something...

BOSTON (AP) — A bomb threat charge has been dropped against a man accused of placing a backpack with a rice cooker near the Boston Marathon finish line on the anniversary of last year’s deadly bombing. Suffolk County district attorney’s spokesman Jake Wark said Tuesday the state could not prove Kevin Edson communicated a clear threat with an explosive device.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Todd: White House was 'caught off guard' MSNBC’S Chuck Todd observed Tuesday that the White House was “caught off guard” by the disastrous public roll out of their prisoner exchange for Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. Todd and Andrea Mitchell agreed that the White House had likely thought there would be “some euphoria around this, the only POW that was remaining in Afghanistan, that there would be a rally around the flag. That didn’t happen.” “They were expecting criticisms of Gitmo, criticisms of the detainees that were chosen,” Todd said. “They did not expect this criticism of the attempt to...

(CNN) - Former Army Sgt. Evan Buetow was the team leader with Bowe Bergdahl the night Bergdahl disappeared. "Bergdahl is a deserter, and he's not a hero," says Buetow. "He needs to answer for what he did." Within days of his disappearance, says Buetow, teams monitoring radio chatter and cell phone communications intercepted an alarming message: The American is in Yahya Khel (a village two miles away). He's looking for someone who speaks English so he can talk to the Taliban. "I heard it straight from the interpreter's lips as he heard it over the radio," said Buetow. "There's a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is re-establishing a law enforcement group to fight those it designates as domestic terrorists, with an announcement expected on Tuesday, Department of Justice officials said. Following hate-motivated shootings such as the one at a Jewish Community Center in Kansas City, Missouri in April, federal prosecutors have pressed the need to coordinate intelligence of such criminals on a national level, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The group will coordinate cases that involve Americans who may be spurred to violence for political or prejudicial reasons.

@daqeqa Agree! "Democracy" is a cult in the West. I think most of afgs see law in terms of sharia not secular democracy, man centric laws.

If President Barack Obama hoped his deal with the Taliban to bring back Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl would be a political boon in the midst of the VA scandal, he is in for a big surprise. Soon after Obama revealed that Bergdahl was to be released, we learned the president agreed to release five of the most hardcore Taliban fighters from America’s terrorist detention facility in Guantanamo Bay in exchange. “While not as well known as Guantanamo inmates like 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Taliban 5 were some of the worst outlaws in the U.S. war on terror,” Eli Lake...

"When the men pull up in a convoy of black SUVs, they receive a warm reception, with lots of hugs from the awaiting supporters The release of the video comes after the Taliban declared 'victory' And President Barack Obama was accused of endangering Western lives by exchanging the five 'hardened terrorists' At least one detainee is accused of presiding over a mass killing

Editor’s note: Below are the video and transcript to Ambassador John Bolton’s address at the Freedom Center’s 2014 Texas Weekend. The event took place May 2nd-4th at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas. Daniel Pipes: Please join me in welcoming John Bolton. (Applause) John Bolton: Thanks, Daniel. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I’m always delighted to be able to be part of a Freedom Center event. The work that everybody does is just so important, and becomes more important. So for all of you who are supporters, believe me, it’s support that’s put...

Does the WH believe that all terrorists are equal, it's just some terrorists are more equal or rather worse than others? If the Obama administration is willing to use third parties (such as Qatar) to procure the release of individuals such as Bergdahl, and in the process, undesirables such as the 5 GITMO detainees are released, then the issue isn't the use of third parties, the issue(s) rather are which terrorists will the WH consider for release/swapping? If the WH says that they won't ever swap Al Qaeda for U.S. soldiers because AQ are terrorists (and they are terrorists --...

So, we have Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl released in exchange for five of the most notorious Taliban held in Guantanamo, the place Obama keeps saying he wants to empty. This certainly helps to empty it. The five men will now be held by Qatar, which has reassured us they’ll be in secure conditions but won’t say what those conditions are, except that they can’t travel out of the country for a year. Qatar is a Wahabi country, by the way, with a history of assisting Islamic movements worldwide. Obama has been winding down the Afghan War, and one of his stalled...

As Twitchy has reported, President Obama ordered the release of five Gitmo detainees to secure the return of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from his Taliban captors in Afghanistan. Recently, a tweet was published from the account of Bowe Bergdahl’s father, Robert, which stated a desire to see all Gitmo detainees released. Here’s the tweet from Bob Bergdahl’s account, which was published May 28 and deleted Saturday night (at the time of publication the deletion of the tweet has not been acknowledged on the account): @ABalkhi I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners. God will repay for the death of...

Flashback: A reminder about Bowe Bergdahl’s desertion problem By Michelle Malkin • May 31, 2014 08:51 PM While many people jumped aboard the Bowe Bergdahl bandwagon, I was not one of them. His release today in exchange for five Taliban commanders who had been in custody at Gitmo underscores troubling questions that have persisted since his alleged abduction. Longtime readers will recall questions raised here about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance. Here’s a flashback from my July 20, 2009 blog post:

Three years ago, a 23-year-old soldier walked off his base in Afghanistan and into the hands of the Taliban. Now he’s a crucial pawn in negotiations to end the war. Will the Pentagon leave a man behind? Bowe's own tour of duty in Afghanistan mirrored the larger American experience in the war – marked by tragedy, confusion, misplaced idealism, deluded thinking and, perhaps, a moment of insanity. And it is with Bowe that the war will likely come to an end. On May 1st, in a surprise visit to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, President Obama announced that...

Emails an American soldier reportedly sent to his parents before he was captured by the Taliban three years ago suggest he was disillusioned and considering deserting. Bowe Bergdahl told his parents he was "ashamed to even be American" and was disgusted with the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and with the Army, according to emails quoted in Rolling Stone magazine.

Early Saturday it was announced by the administration that the only American prisoner of war in the Afghanistan was released in exchange for 5 Guantanamo Bay terrorists being set free to Qatar. The circumstances of the capture of Bowe Bergdahl had been in question long before his release – supposedly he had wandered off and captured by the Taliban. But a soldier on Twitter is claiming that the official story is untrue, and has posted his version of the events that led to Bowe’s capture. Towards the end of his story, he says he fears reprisal from the Obama administration,...

A Twitter posting by the father of the serviceman released from Taliban captivity Saturday in exchange for five prisoners from Guantanamo Bay is raising deep questions about what exactly the Obama administration did to get Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl out of Afghanistan. Here’s the tweet, which Robert Bergdahl posted May 28 – before his son’s release – and deleted Saturday, according to Twitchy.com. Whatever else it might be, “God will repay for the death of every Afghan child, ameen!” doesn’t sound like a rousing call to patriotism. ABalkhi is the Twitter handle of Abdulqahar Balkhi, a Taliban spokesman. It’s important...

Father of American Soldier Freed From Taliban Deletes a Very Disturbing Tweet On Saturday morning the Obama administration happily announced that we were now negotiating with terrorists and that Bowe Bergdahl would be freed in an agreement with the Taliban that would allow five dangerous terrorists to be released from Guantanamo Bay. Bowe’s father Bob Bergdahl appeared with Obama for the announcement: Tarek S. Fatah @TarekFatah Follow Is @BobBergdahl, father of Sgt. #BoweBergdahl a Muslim? He opened his talk in Islamic greeting http://cnn.it/T2prlp

HOUSTON - A Jordanian-born man facing state charges for the shooting death of an Iranian student and women's rights activist has been ordered held without bond on federal fraud charges for what authorities say was his involvement in a benefits scheme. ...Nadia Irsan, her father, Ali Irsan, and his wife were arrested last week at their home in Conroe on charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., theft of public money and benefits fraud. ...Ali Irsan, 56, also has been indicted in Houston for the slaying of Gelareh Bagherzadeh. Investigators say Ali Irsan shot and killed Bagherzadeh outside her Galleria-area...

The State Department’s Counter Terrorism (CT) Bureau promoted on Friday a controversial Muslim scholar whose organization has reportedly backed Hamas and endorsed a fatwa authorizing the murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The CT bureau on Friday tweeted out a link to the official website of Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, the vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), a controversial organization founded by a Muslim Brotherhood leader “who has called for the death of Jews and Americans and himself is banned from visiting the U.S.,” according to Fox News. Bin Bayyah is reported to have been one...