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"Hurry hurry hurry. We can destroy the enemy. Advance." "Hit hit hit the Taliban." "Hit him hit him hit him. Fire, fire." "We're arriving in Khalakhan." "Take care about the troops." "The Taliban are surrendering." "Bring them to me." "One hundred of them are coming to you." "El Ham captured a pickup with their weapons." These were the voices on the radio of the Northern Alliance commanders we have been visiting for weeks. Several other journalists and I were standing with some Afghan soldiers on the roof of a command post--a mud house with a tank's turret and gun jutting ...

Obama amputates our nuclear arms By: Charles Krauthammer ...snippet...Under President Obama’s new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is “in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” explained Gates, then “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.” Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker...

SNIPPET: "PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Taliban militants blew up a girls' school in Pakistan's Khyber district Monday, officials said, as two soldiers and seven insurgents were killed in clashes in the northwest tribal belt. The pre-dawn school attack took place in Saddokhel town in northwest Khyber tribal district, where militants detonated explosives planted around the building, destroying all five school rooms but causing no injuries. "They are Taliban. They are the same people who do not want children to get an education," senior administration official Rahim Gul Khattak told AFP. Islamist militants opposed to co-education have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly...

SNIPPET: "PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Islamist militants blew up a girls school in Pakistan's lawless Khyber tribal district Sunday, destroying the building and wounding four people in neighbouring homes, officials said. Two explosions ripped through the 18-room government high school for girls at Kari Gar village and a boy who watched the premises is missing..." SNIPPET: "Islamist militants, who have carved out a strong presence in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt on the Afghan border, have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in the northwest of the country in recent years. Nearly 200 schools were destroyed in the Swat valley alone...

CHARIKAR, Afghanistan -- Nearly 50 teenagers were admitted to hospital after a suspected mass poisoning at an Afghan girls' school, a doctor said on Monday, in the second such incident in a month. The headmaster rushed his students out of their classrooms in the northern town of Charikar after they smelt an unusual odour and started feeling nauseous and dizzy, a 17-year-old victim told Reuters from her hospital bed. "I am pretty sure whoever has done this is against education for girls, but I strongly ask the parents not to be discouraged by such brutal action and send their children...

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Blog Details Pakistani Daily: Taliban Vow To ‘Reform’ Media And Banking The Taliban have vowed to ‘reform’ the media and banking system as a next step in their Islamization program, according to a Pakistani daily. In recent years, the Taliban had mainly attacked barbers’ shops for shaving beards, music centers for selling CDs and videos and girls’ schools. According to a report in Lahore-based newspaper Daily Times, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said their next target will be the banking system where "un-Islamic affairs are being carried out." The spokesman added that the...

Pakistan: Anonymous "miscreants" blow up girls' school Once again, the unknown miscreants vent their rage on girls' schools. Of course, had this report explained the stated goals of these "miscreants" -- the total application of sharia, including keeping females uneducated -- this story would make a bit more sense. "Miscreants blow up girls' school at Bannu," from Geo TV, April 5: BANNU: Some unidentified miscreants have blasted with explosives a girls' school in the town here. Sources said that the miscreants this morning blasted with a bang a girls’ school located in the vicinity of Miryan police station here by...

Little girls in the militancy-hit Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan hate a diktat issued by pro-Taliban rebels to attend school in burqas. Burqas are the only option some girls' schools in northwestern Pakistan have against being shut down or worse, being bombed. "I want to study, but not in a burqa," said Shah Rukh, a 12-year-old girl enrolled at a primary school at Saidu Sharif in Swat. Shah Rukh is just one of many girls who have learnt to speak out against the burqa diktat in the picturesque Valley. "My 11-year-old daughter cries every morning when she has to wear...