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Afghanistan: A warlord Hekmatyar claimed the ambush against the French KABUL - The Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar claimed responsibility for the ambush in which ten French soldiers were killed near Kabul on August 18 and acknowledged the death of ten of its own fighters in this battle, in a video received Monday by a private news agency Afghan. The attack had previously been claimed by the Taliban, which form a separate group Hezb-e-Islami (Islamic party, HIG) to Hekmatyar. On 18 August, a French patrol fell into an ambush mounted by 140 to 170 well-armed insurgents in the valley Uzbeen...

Afghan Fundamentalism: The Role of the U.S., Russia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia David Storobin, Esq. - 12/12/2004 Victor Boot was a graduate of Military Institute for Foreign Languages in Moscow, a known school for Russian intelligence. He was the son of the son-in-law of foreign Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who initiated the Russian policy of secretly assisting Islamic terrorists. In 1997, Boot arrived in the United Arab Emirates for the first time. From UAE, it was easier for Boot to funnel Russian weaponry to Afghanistan. In June 2001 - less than three months before September 11 - Pakistani intelligence described...

 A federal grand jury in Kansas City has issued a new indictment against an Islamic charity based in Columbia---and has added a former Michigan congressman to the list of people indicted.The new indictment accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency and several former officers of of engaging in prohibited financial transactions for the benefit of a terrorist. The indictment charges former Michigan Congressman Mark Deli Siljander with money laundering, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice.Federal officials say the charity sent money to Pakistan to benefit a man designated by the United States as a global terrorist. The prosecutor says the man had...

Former Michigan congressman Siljander indicted by Gazette Staff and News Service Reports Wednesday January 16, 2008, 4:41 PM Gazette fileFormer U.S. Rep. Mark Deli Siljander A former Kalamazoo-area congressman was indicted Wednesday for his part in an alleged terrorist fundraising ring that is accused of sending more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan. Mark Siljander, a former Three Rivers resident who represented southwestern Michigan from 1981-87, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. He allegedly lied about lobbying senators...

Excerpt - KARACHI, Pakistan - Fugitive Afghan rebel leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar told The Associated Press his forces have ended cooperation with the Taliban and suggested that he was open to talks with embattled President Hamid Karzai. In a video response to questions submitted by AP, Hekmatyar also recounted how U.S. forces nearly caught him on two occasions but he got away. Hekmatyar, speaking in front of a plain white wall at an undisclosed location, indicated that his group contacted Taliban leaders some time in 2003 and agreed to wage a joint jihad, or holy war, against American troops. "The jihad...

Afghan Warlord Says He Helped Bin Laden Escape Tora Bora Thursday, January 11, 2007 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Afghan insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said in a television interview broadcast Thursday that his fighters helped Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden escape intense U.S. bombing in the Tora Bora mountains in 2001. Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister and leader of the Hezb-e-Islami militant group, told Pakistan's private Geo TV network that when the United States began its assault on the rugged Afghan mountains five years ago, some of his fighters moved bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and other associates to...

Pakistan (AP) - In a rare video message, Afghan insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar claims that American troops will be forced out of Afghanistan like the Soviets before them. The leader of the Hezb-e-Islami militant group also touts the Republican Party defeat in last month's U.S. midterm elections as a victory for militants fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. "It seems that every bullet that mujahedeen had fired toward the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan has turned into a vote against Bush," Hekmatyar said in the undated video statement received by Associated Press Television in Pakistan. "There is no doubt that is...

AL-QAEDA leader Osama bin Laden, reported last week to have died, is alive and hiding in Afghanistan, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview published in The Times today. "It's not a hunch,'' Musharraf said. Afghanistan's eastern "Kunar province borders on Bajaur Agency. We know there are some pockets of al-Qaida in Bajaur Agency. We have set a good intelligence organisation. We have moved some army elements. We did strike them twice there. We located and killed a number of them there.'' Pakistan's military ruler also suggested links between bin Laden and Afghan warlord and former Afghan prime minister...

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Reported Captured The commander of Hezb-i-Islami and al-Qaeda ally detained during a raid in eastern Afghanistan On the day of the fifth anniversary of the 9-11 attack, Coalition forces score a high value target in Afghanistan. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the commander of Hezb-i-Islami and ally of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, has been captured during a joint U.S. and Afghan Army raid in “eastern Afghanistan.” Hekmatyar, contrary to his rhetoric gave up to the Coalition forces without a fight. Hekmatyar's arrest is said to be part of an 'ongoing operation.' Hekmatyar has been designated by the U.S. Department of State...

War brutalizes man, every afghan bears living testimony to this. If the landscape of Afghanistan bears the craters of the endless war, the political and military leadership in Afghanistan also carries war's indelible scars. It is important never to lose sight of this. Ahmed Shah Mas'ud was born to an army family in 1953 in the Panjshir Valley north of the Afghan capital Kabul. His father was a colonel in the Afghan Army and enrolled his son at Kabul's Lycee Istiqlal High School. Upon graduation Mas'ud joined Kabul's Polytechnic Institute. In 1973 King Zahir Shah was deposed and exiled by...

An Afghan warlord who settled in Britain kept a human dog to bite his victims and waged a campaign of kidnap and torture against civilians, the Old Bailey was told yesterday. Faraydi Zardad, a veteran fighter against the Russians and the Taliban, was the commander of soldiers manning checkpoints on the Jalalabad road, the vital supply route between Kabul and Peshawar. He had complete authority in the area between 1992 and 1996 and "had a fearsome reputation for being cruel and merciless", the court was told. In the first prosecution of its kind Zardad, 41, who was arrested while living...

IN a video recording released today, renegade Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar urged Afghanistan's people to join a jihad, or holy war, against the US-led coalition and to drive "the occupying infidel forces" out of the country. The compact disc, containing a 22-minute speech by Hekmatyar, appeared to be authentic and recently made, since it mentioned current events such as US President George W Bush's visit to Iraq last month and last month's political unrest in Georgia, the former Soviet state. Wearing a simple wool hat and a black jacket, and sitting in front of a gray background in an...

KABUL (Reuters) - The al Qaeda network has stepped up activity along the Afghan-Pakistan border, opening a "second front" to divert U.S. military resources and attention from Iraq, Afghanistan 's interior minister said Friday. Ali Ahmad Jalali said some recent attacks on U.S. forces, especially in the east of the country, had been carried out by foreign al Qaeda fighters, as opposed to native Taliban militia. Militants killed in clashes on the Afghan and Pakistan sides of the border in recent weeks included Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks and Pakistanis, a sign they were from the network of Saudi-born dissident Osama bin...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The CIA fired a missile from an unmanned Predator in hopes of killing a former Afghan warlord who was plotting to overthrow the new government and was threatening American troops, U.S. officials said Thursday. Former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of a hardline Islamic group, was targeted Monday near the capital, Kabul, but the missile missed him, defense officials said on condition of anonymity. The strike is believed to have killed some of Hekmatyar's followers. CIA officials declined comment. An official of the Afghan Defense Ministry, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said...