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Islamic State fighters have captured swathes of eastern Afghanistan in a drive to establish a new province of the group's self-styled caliphate on territory straddling the border with Pakistan. Up to 1,600 fighters pledging allegiance to Isis are ruling much of four districts south of Jalalabad with the same ruthlessness that characterises the group's regime in Syria and Iraq: public beheadings, strict adherence to Koranic teachings foreign to Afghanistan, and extortion.

A joint Afghan-U.S. special forces operation freed at least 40 Afghan prisoners from a Taliban prison in the southern Helmand province, authorities said Friday. The troops carried out a helicopter assault on the prison in Nawzad district Thursday night, according to a statement from U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The operation freed 40 prisoners, who were captured Afghan police, army and border police. No U.S. ground forces were involved in the raid, Fox News confirmed.

Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour has been wounded in a gunfight at a meeting of militants in the Pakistani city of Quetta, reports say.

A senior Navy Department official decided Monday to force a Marine Corps officer out of the service for his handling of classified information, three years after he was first investigated after sending a warning to deployed colleagues about an Afghan police chief whose servant later killed three Marines. Maj. Jason Brezler will be separated from the Marine Corps following a decision by acting Assistant Navy Secretary Scott Lutterloh, said Michael Bowe, Brezler’s attorney. The case grabbed attention in Congress and among highly decorated senior officers in the military, some of whom advocated on Brezler’s behalf to let him stay in...

<p>Late last month in "Russia's Mid-East Takeover Continues As Afghanistan Requests Military Assistance From Moscow," we noted, with some amusement, that Kabul was set to request a weapons delivery from Russia to aid in the fight against the Taliban. "Afghanistan, battered by worsening security, is reaching out to an old ally and patron—Russia—just as the Kremlin is seeking to reassert its position as a heavyweight on the world stage," WSJ reported, on the way to detailing a request from President Ashraf Ghani who "asked Moscow for artillery, small arms and Mi-35 helicopter gunships for his country's struggling military."</p>

Berlin has opened a shelter at the former headquarters of communist East Germany's feared Stasi secret police to help house a record influx of asylum seekers, weekend media reports said. Nearly 500 people, most of them from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have been staying in the foreign intelligence wing of the imposing former Ministry of State Security since late Friday, the daily Berliner Zeitung said. Up to 900 people will eventually be housed there temporarily. ...

U.S. Border Patrol agents detained five undocumented border-crossers from Pakistan and another from Afghanistan near Patagonia this week. The individuals were detained Monday along with two smugglers, the Border Patrol said in a statement issued Thursday. Patagonia Marshal Joe Patterson said the arrests occurred in the Rail X Ranch Estates neighborhood just northeast of town, near Milepost 22 on State Route 82. “As a standard procedure, agents processed the six individuals and checked their identities against numerous law enforcement and national security-related databases,” the Border Patrol statement said. “Records checks revealed no derogatory information about the individuals.”

Toward the end of the century, Westerners who fled their home countries to fight in Afghanistan or Bosnia shared a common characteristic: They were practically all men. Today’s militant recruits, however, represent a dramatic demographic shift. Most are just entering adulthood. They often meet terrorists online. They’ve asked in covert chats: Do you have hair dryers, or should I bring one? One in seven are women, according to a new report. An estimated 4,500 Westerners have ditched home for the Islamic State or other Sunni jihadist groups in Syria or Iraq. Researchers at New America, a nonpartisan think tank in...

As France grapples with the implications of allowing hundreds, possibly thousands of ISIS radicals into its country as immigrants and "refugees" in the wake of last week's massive terror attack on Paris, the Obama administration has continued to cover up the Islamic threads that run through two recent terror attacks on U.S. soil while doubling down on the importation of more Muslim refugees. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has called a hearing for Thursday morning to examine the Syrian refugee crisis and its impact on national security. At the same time Speaker Paul Ryan is...

The director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, the storied home of the agency’s most secretive intelligence operations, has announced that he plans to retire, The Daily Beast has learned. CIA spokesman Dean Boyd confirmed that the director announced his retirement “after a long and distinguished career at CIA. We thank him for this profound and lasting contributions to both CIA and to our nation’s security.” As a practice, the CIA doesn’t identify the head of the clandestine service by name. But Frank Archibald was outed in a Twitter post in 2013, and details of his biography were known to...

The devastating toll of terror attacks is laid bare today with a shocking study revealing the number of people slaughtered worldwide has risen by 80 per cent in a year. A total of 32,658 people were killed by terrorists around the world in 2014 - an 80 per cent increase on the previous year, according to the Global Terrorism Index. Researchers said that while Iraq, Afghanistan and Nigeria bore the brunt of deaths last year, the attacks in Paris on Friday mark a 'watershed within Europe'.

It appears ISIS-allied fighters are gaining a foothold in Afghanistan, but just how similar are they to the group’s branches in Iraq and Syria?

Posters branded with the emblem of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Kabul, have sprung up around Afghanistan trying to warn locals off choosing the nation as a target for migration. Debunking common myths about life in Germany which the authorities believe serve to make the country seem more appealing to Afghans, the posters are stark with their blank-canvas design with Arabic glyphs spelling out key messages in local languages Dari and Pashto.

Germany has launched a campaign in Afghanistan to tell its nationals to think carefully before embarking on the tough journey to seek asylum in Europe, the foreign ministry said on Monday. "This is not about deterrence, but about getting people to think it through," said a foreign ministry spokesman. Billboards bearing slogans in Dari and Pashtu including "Leaving Afghanistan? Are you sure?" or "Leaving Afghanistan? Thought it through?" have been put up at prominent sites in the capital Kabul, as well as in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat in the west. ...

ALBANY -- The spiritual leader of an Albany mosque repeatedly called a phone number in Syria that an FBI report indicates had been used to gather terrorist intelligence for Osama bin Laden, according to classified documents unsealed late Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The FBI report, which was based on information from a confidential informant, was among several once-secret documents that federal authorities say raise questions about Yassin Aref's connections to terrorist organizations across the Middle East. Aref, 35, a Kurdish refugee who moved to Albany with his family in 1999, is in jail without bond while awaiting trial on...

A test involving the long-range cruise missile Nirbhay had to be aborted and the missile destroyed midair, according to a statement issued by India’s Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO) last Friday.“Long range cruise missile Nirbhay was successfully launched today at 1150 hrs from launch complex, Chandipur, Odisha, meeting the basic mission objectives successfully. After travelling approximately mid-way, deviations were observed from its intended course. Further, flight was terminated to ensure coastal safety,” the press release states.According to a source within India’s defense ministry quoted by the Times of India, “[t]he flight was aborted after its guidance system (manufactured by...

President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to a French-born former U.S. Army captain who tackled a suicide bomber and saved other soldiers' lives while serving in Afghanistan. Florent "Flo" Groberg, 32, was given the highest U.S. military honor in a ceremony Thursday morning at the White House, making him the tenth living person to receive the award for actions in Afghanistan. (Seven others have received the medal posthumously.)

Grab a cup of coffee because itÂ’s a long read with over 350 citations and reference source links for confirmational material. We think youÂ’ll get hooked and find 95% of your Benghazi questions answered. And if you can find a factual flaw IÂ’ll buy the coffee.. SD The CIA and Intelligence community had stated earlier the biggest concern anyone held about arming the Libyan Rebels was the possibility those weapons might leave the Libyan conflict and travel to other locations where they would be used against our own soldiers. More and more evidence of this happening was growing. In 2011...

First, we must express our sincere gratitude and respect for all those Veterans who carried the Flag before us, all those who served on our left and on our right and all those who picked up the Flag and moved forward after us. No matter where, when or in what role, your service is appreciated and recognized. And, Happy Birthday to the USMC – Semper Fidelis! As the first Veterans’ Day to be discussed from the Veterans’ Perspective, we must address one of the most important topics to be share with the civilian community. A Tragic Myth of PTSD –...

We were both waiting for our delayed planes in the boarding section of a large airport. I had noticed the young man wearing the sandy-colored desert-camo uniform and after I thanked him for his service, we just naturally started talking. Elated about going home for several months after a year in Afghanistan, he was open and even chatty in the aw-shucks way of a youth raised in a solid middle class family in the heartland. I didn't tell him I am a raving, flaming, right-wing writer because I didn't want his views to be colored by mine. I asked Dane...