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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...

Here is video from an interview done by Meet the Press host David Gregory with Pakistan's President Asif Zardari that will air this weekend. Gregory asks Zardari if he believes Osama Bin Laden is alive, and Zardari says he DOES NOT believe that he is. He was evasive when asked if his government is actively looking for Bin Laden, saying only that "the world" is looking for him. You sure don't get the feeling watching this that he is going to be much of a reliable ally for the United States. I would guess the Taliban are licking their chops...

AFP - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was expected in Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian leaders on his first major foreign visit since the killing of Osama bin Laden by US forces. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will host Zardari for talks on Thursday at the Kremlin where officials from the two countries were also expected to sign agreements on cooperation in agriculture, aviation and energy, a spokesman for the Pakistan Embassy in Moscow told AFP. "Economics will be the focus of the visit," said the spokesman, Raja Abdul Qayyum. The three-day visit to Russia will be Zardari's first...

Pakistani officials say a mentally-challenged Christian girl accused of blaspheming Islam has been released from jail. Rimsha Masih's release Saturday comes a day after a judge granted her bail, in a case that has drawn international outrage. Rimsha, believed to be 14 years old, spent the last three weeks in jail near the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, after neighbors accused her of burning pages from the Quran. … On Friday, Amnesty International said Rimsha is still in serious danger even after a judge ordered her freed. …

WASHINGTON — They are the Sopranos of the Afghanistan war, a ruthless crime family that built an empire out of kidnapping, extortion, smuggling, even trucking. They have trafficked in precious gems, stolen lumber and demanded protection money from businesses building roads and schools with American reconstruction funds. They safeguard their mountainous turf by planting deadly roadside bombs and shelling remote American military bases. And they are accused by American officials of being guns for hire: a proxy force used by the Pakistani intelligence service to carry out grisly, high-profile attacks in Kabul and throughout the country. Today, American intelligence and...

The Obama administration declared Friday that the Pakistan-based Haqqani network of militants is a terrorist body despite misgivings about how the largely symbolic act could further stall planned Afghan peace talks or put yet another chill on the United States' already fragile counterterrorism alliance with Islamabad. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's decision, signed Friday ahead of a Sunday deadline set by Congress, bans Americans from doing business with members of the group and blocks any assets it holds in the United States. The order, which will go into effect within 10 days, completes an odyssey of sorts for the...

The Navy SEAL Team 6 operators hand-picked to raid Osama bin Laden’s compound in 2011 had some unwelcome surprises waiting for them as they hit the ground, according to Matt Bissonnette (pen name Mark Owen) in his controversial book “No Easy Day,” released Tuesday. Here are the top six revelations from his new memoir.1. VIPs gathered for a dress rehearsal two weeks before the mission.At a massive hangar at a base training center, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and Adm. William McRaven, now commander of Special Operations Command, wanted to evaluate the plan to...

NEW DELHI: China may claim there is "not a single" People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldier in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) but India remains thoroughly unconvinced. Ahead of the delegation-level meeting with visiting Chinese defence minister General Liang Guanglie on Tuesday, India has again asked Beijing to stop expanding its strategic footprint in PoK. "The government is aware of the infrastructure development by China at the border and their (Chinese) undertaking infrastructure projects in PoK. The government has conveyed its concerns to China about its activities in PoK and asked them to cease such activities," said defence minister A K Antony, in a...

A car filled with explosives rammed into a U.S. government vehicle in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday, killing two Pakistanis and wounding 19 other people, police said. Two Americans and two Pakistanis working at the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar were among the wounded, according to a U.S. Embassy statement, which expressed gratitude for "the humane professionalism of the local Pakistani security forces who saved the lives of the two American Diplomats and two Pakistani local staff of the U.S. Consulate General Peshawar by pulling them to safety

ISLAMABAD — The Muslim cleric at the forefront of a campaign to prosecute a Christian girl for blasphemy has suddenly found himself at risk of facing the same charges, after one of his colleagues went to the authorities and accused him of falsifying evidence of burned holy papers. The surprise arrest might change the direction of a case that has brought the world’s attention to Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws, which critics say are regularly used to exploit and intimidate minorities. And it bolstered the possibility of a speedy release for Rimsha Masih, the girl awaiting trial in prison on charges...

Brief thoughts/quotes from the last 11 years. "Looking away, not caring, or hoping for the best are not viable options in fighting terrorism (in general) and the global jihad (specifically). Terrorism must be fought head on 24/7 and preventing terrorism is far better than just reacting to one terror-related event after another." -Cindy (July 1, 2011) ~ "WHAT DID I LEARN from the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001? OPINION: I have learned that more Americans love America than the lame-stream media will ever let on. I have learned that America's military is the finest in the world. I have...

(Reuters) - Pakistani authorities have arrested a Muslim cleric on allegations of framing a Christian girl who was arrested under the country's controversial anti-blasphemy law, a police official said on Sunday. Religious and secular groups worldwide have protested over the detention in August of Rimsha Masih, accused by Muslim neighbors of burning Islamic religious texts. Police official Munir Hussain Jafri said a cleric was arrested after witnesses from Masih's village on the edge of the capital Islamabad complained about his alleged actions. "Witnesses complained that he had torn pages from a Koran and placed them in her bag which had...

Pakistani police have arrested a Muslim cleric who accused a Christian girl of blasphemy on suspicion that he planted evidence, a police officer said Sunday, the latest twist in a religiously charged case that has focused attention on Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws. ....

Pakistan's Islamic leaders have voiced their support for a Christian girl who is facing charges of desecrating the Koran. She is being held in a high security prison but there is growing international pressure for her to be freed. The girl, known as Rimsha, was arrested for allegedly burning pages of the Koran and could face the death penalty if convicted under Pakistan's anti-blasphemy laws. In an unprecedented step, the All Pakistan Ulema Council, an umbrella group of conservative Muslim clerics, has called for justice for the girl. The council also wants people making false blasphemy allegations to be punished....

AVARUA: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday she would meet an obligation to decide in coming days whether the Pakistan-linked Haqqani network should be considered terrorists. US lawmakers have pressed Clinton to blacklist the group, which is blamed for grisly attacks in Afghanistan, but some US officials have warned such a step could dramatically set back already fraught ties with Pakistan. ...

Pakistan's embattled Christian minority have launched a campaign for a separate province to protect them from persecution after a wave of brutal attacks and arrests for blasphemy. A 14-year-old girl is being held in prison after being accused of burning a copy of the Koran and last week the body of an 11-year-old Christian boy was found in Punjab bearing torture marks. The demand for a separate province, although unlikely to succeed, is a further blow to the ideal of Pakistan's founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, of a secular country that would be home to India's Muslims but where all...

Hundreds of Pakistani Christians have fled Islamabad following blasphemy accusations against a young Christian girl (who may have Downs Syndrome). While some have returned home, CBS reports, many Pakistani Christians are still living in a state of fear and uncertainty: . . . Nooran Bashir, who had fled a few hours after the girl’s arrest, was back in her home Monday. “I don’t know whether she burned pages of some holy book or not, but we all had to abruptly leave our homes to save our lives,” she said. She said one of her sons came back with her, but...

<p>The CEO, president, and "part-owner" of the Shangri-La, a "chic hotel in Santa Monica," one Tehmina Adaya, a Muslim, now claims to have, "condemned anti-Semitism and declared her support for Israel." Hmmm... That's strange. In July 2010, she belched out, "Get the [expletive] Jews out of the hotel." The expletive was the word "fucking." Back then, her vulgar, hateful words were aimed at a group of pro-Israel young people, many of them Jews, members of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) -- surprise, surprise. Why now Adaya's sudden admiration for Jews and Israel?</p>

Washington and Ankara have agreed to create an "intelligence shield" to prevent militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party from freely entering and operating on the Turkish territory from Syria as they discussed "after Assad" future. The format of the Turkish-American anti-terrorist cooperation anticipates joint collection and sharing of intelligence data on militants' activities on the Syrian territory and Turkish border districts, including possible rotation of chemical weapons on Syrian territory. According to the Turkish NTV channel the "intelligence shield" is to be directed by CIA operatives that have been previously working in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The shield's creation is the...

Non-Aligned Movement member states will assemble in Tehran next week. The conference will provide great opportunities to demonstrate and expand their indefatigable pursuits of human rights, justice and peace. I don't need a teleprompter! Due to President Obama's remarkable foreign policy unsuccesses in isolating Iran and hence preventing it from getting nuclear weapons, Iran has become unhappy and lonely. Some of its few remaining friends are among the one hundred and twenty members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) for which Iran which will host a conference in Tehran during most (August 26 - 31) of next week. A list of...