Free Republic

At least 5 people have reportedly been killed and an airport emergency declared after heavily armed militants stormed the airport in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. Twelve militants are thought to be inside and fire is seen rising from the scene. The militants launched grenades and opened fire as they entered the building. Two of the terrorists have reportedly been killed. At least three blasts were heard, and an airport emergency has been declared, with flight operations suspended, reported the local Karachi Post. The five people killed are Airport Security Force (ASF) staff, according to Pakistani news channel Geo.tv

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 MSM are not the only ones missing the distinction between the Taliban and Haqqani networks. There's Jay Carney, in the clip John Hayward posted, claiming Bergdahl was being held by the Taliban. And National Security Advisor Susan Rice - who like Hagel and Carney, also refused to admit that the Obama administration negotiated with terrorists in her interview with Candy Crowley on Face the Nation, Sunday. Rice repeatedly asserted that Bergdahl had been held captive by the Taliban (who have not been designated a terrorist organization even though they routinely engage in terror-like activities.) ... most people were skeptical...

U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl at one point during his captivity converted to Islam, fraternized openly with his captors and declared himself a "mujahid," or warrior for Islam, according to secret documents prepared on the basis of a purported eyewitness account and obtained by Fox News. The reports indicate that Bergdahl's relations with his Haqqani captors morphed over time, from periods of hostility, where he was treated very much like a hostage, to periods where, as one source told Fox News, "he became much more of an accepted fellow" than is popularly understood. He even reportedly was allowed to carry...

<p>Reported details of the high-profile prisoner swap that freed Bowe Bergdahl over the weekend are not telling the full story ... The Haqqani Network, a terrorist group operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan ... the details of that exchange do not add up.</p>

A senior intelligence official with intimate knowledge of the years-long effort to locate and rescue Bergdahl told the Washington Free Beacon that the details of that exchange do not add up. The official, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, speculated that a cash ransom was paid to the Haqqani Network to get the group to free the prisoner. The Obama administration reportedly considered offering cash for his release as late as December 2013. The State Department has repeatedly refused to say whether the deal that released Bergdahl involved any cash payment. The ransom...

Can’t be true. Ransoms are paid for hostages, and Jay Carney assured me Bergdahl was a prisoner, not a hostage. This isn’t out-of-left-field speculation. Fox News reported two days ago that a ransom for Bergdahl was on the table inside U.S. intelligence circles as recently as December. The key point to grasp here, writes Lachlan Markay, is that the Haqqani Network, which was holding Bergdahl, and the Taliban are two different outfits. The Taliban are true jihadis, bent on reconquering Afghanistan. The Haqqanis are more of an Afghan mafia, bent on enriching themselves. Both have killed lots of American soldiers...

It doesn’t matter if Bergdahl had deserted his post or not. It doesn’t matter if he is a confused young man who said insulting and shameful things about his country and his Army. It doesn’t matter either that the United States government ended up dealing with terrorists. In the first place, the Taliban is not a terrorist organization the way Al Qaeda is. America has always tried to reach a negotiated arrangement with the Taliban, and this agreement may be a piece of that.

The Era of Obama’s Unintended Consequences Fox News James Rosen reported that while Bowe Bergdahl was in captivity he converted to Islam and declared himself a mujahid. Mujahid means one who struggles for the sake of Allah. Not surprisingly, in recent years it was closely associated with Islamic extremists. Fox News obtained Secret situation reports or SITREPS that detail Bergdahl’s life in the hands Haqqani captors. His life over the last five years, according to the SITREPS, consisted of a progression from mistreatment to acceptance to eventually trusting Bergdahl with a loaded AK-47. In 2010 Bergdahl attempted to escape and...

Belmont Club Books Archives Bio by Richard Fernandez Decoding Bergdahl June 5th, 2014 - 3:25 pm     inShare President Obama explained that he traded the Taliban 5 for Bowe Bergdahl because it’s what great men do. “This is what happens at the end of wars,” Obama said, speaking in Poland. That was true for George Washington, that was true for Abraham Lincoln, that was true for FDR.”  He forgot to add “then it is true for me”. Much is plain to those who walk in the footsteps of giants. Except it’s little hard to remember when exactly Washington, Lincoln or...

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...

It was June 2009. I was working off the grid in and around South-Eastern Afghanistan. I had built a very effective Afghan network: local elders, merchants, NDS commanders, Afghan Army CI, etc. Word came down that a soldier from the 501st INF had gone AWOL. The name of the soldier was quickly known: Bowe Bergdahl. Within hours of the reported “DUSTWUN” (Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown) the RC-East Commander initiated a total gag order, preventing any Army unit or Embedded Training Team (ETT) / Police Mentor Team (PMT) team from sharing intelligence with the Afghans. His order was based on his...

Afghan national security forces near the border with Pakistan recently intercepted one of the largest truck bombs ever built, a massive "vehicle-borne improvised explosive device," or VBIED, packed with some 61,500 pounds of explosives. ***snip*** An ABC News investigation, which aired on "World News with Diane Sawyer" this week, showed that lawmakers have tried to stop the U.S. Army from giving logistics contracts to companies linked to Afghan insurgents including the deadly network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Siraj

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...

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:

After announcing the upcoming designation of the Haqqani Network, two anonymous senior State Department officials gave a briefing on the action, and were challenged by reporters Justin Fishel from FOX News and Adam Entous from The Wall Street Journal on the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency's support of the Haqqani Network: Note how the State Dept. officials dance around the issues of Pakistan's support for the Haqqani Network and why the US isn't even considering adding Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism: ------------------------snip----------------------------- QUESTION: Yeah, thank you very much. I just wanted to follow up on Justin's question. When you...

A U.S. soldier held by Afghan militants will not be harmed despite the Obama administration's decision to declare his alleged captors a terrorist group, a senior member of the Pakistan-based Haqqani network told The Associated Press on Saturday. However, the United States and NATO can expect stepped up attacks, he said. The commander, who spoke by telephone from an undisclosed location, denied that the Haqqanis held the only American prisoner of war of the Afghan conflict, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, as the U.S. believes. He did however say that Bergdahl was a captive of another branch of the Taliban, and...

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...

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says his country's strategic partnership signed with India is not meant as an aggressive move against Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, right, and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai pose before a meeting in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011. Karzai is on a two-day official visit to India.(AP Photo/Gurinder Osan) Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, right, and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, address the media after a signing of agreement meeting in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011.This is Karzai's second trip to India this year and comes just days after he accused neighboring Pakistan...

A Pakistani protester shout slogans at an anti-American rally to condemn the U.S. for accusing the country's most powerful intelligence agency of supporting extremist attacks against American targets in Afghanistan, in Multan, Pakistan, Friday, Sept 23, 2011. The top U.S. military officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, accused the Haqqani network Thursday of staging an attack against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. He claimed the Pakistani spy agency, the ISI, helped the group carry out the two attacks. KABUL, Afghanistan -- Pakistani military units fired shots at American and Afghan government troops along the Afghanistan border several times over the past...