Free Republic

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...

PLYMOUTH – Reports of a gunman walking across campus put Plymouth State University and the nearby Holderness School in a lockdown last night. By 9:43 p.m., the lockdown was lifted after officials located and talked to the individual, who was not a student, and learned he was carrying a martial arts device that resembled a gun.

Note: The following text is a quote: www.mnc-i.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE RELEASE No. 20091011-05 October 11, 2009 Iraqi SWAT arrests 2006 sniper suspect Multi-National Corps-Iraq PAO RAMADI, Iraq - Elements of the Ramadi and Habbaniyah Iraq Special Weapons and Tactics teams, with U.S. Special Operations advisors, arrested an individual who is a suspect involved in multiple sniper shootings throughout Anbar Province Oct. 9 near Ramadi. The Magistrate Court of Ar Ramadi issued a warrant for Abd al-Qadir Afan Qafe’s arrest after his alleged involvement in the fatal shooting of an Iraqi Army Soldier in 2006 and the shooting of a...

SACRAMENTO, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Sacramento officials say they rescued dozens of cats that had been living in a house with cages stacked to the ceiling and feces caking the floors. Inside Paul and Kathy Franco's house and garage, city officials said they discovered among the worst cases of animal hoarding they had ever seen, The Sacramento Bee reported. After a SWAT team kicked open the couple's door Wednesday, veterinary specialists, shelter workers and animal-control officers spent hours rescuing the cats, which were taken to the city's animal-control center.

Needed: A 'clean line' to determine lawfulness"You don't need to know. You can't know." That's what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search. The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris' longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor. The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with - get this- the...

So as it turns out, even the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has its own SWAT team. You don’t need to know. You can’t know.” That’s what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search. The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris’ longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor. The six agents, wearing...

4 Police Officers Shot in NJ The Associated Press LAKEWOOD, N.J. - Four Lakewood police officers have been shot executing a search warrant in New Jersey. Deputy Chief Michael Mohel (mohl) says members of the tactical unit were serving a no-knock narcotics and weapons warrant around 2:25 a.m. Thursday when Jamie Gonzalez opened fire

"I remember thinking, as I kneeled at gunpoint with my hands bound on my living room floor, that there had been a terrible, terrible mistake."

Taliban announces surrender in Swat Valley after leader Maulana Fazlullah 'arrested' The Taliban has announced its surrender in Swat Valley, one of its major strongholds until a Pakistan Army offensive regained control earlier this summer. By Emal Khan in Peshawar and Dean Nelson in New Delhi Published: 11:00PM BST 12 Sep 2009 Its announcement, made on one of its pirate radio stations, came as its charismatic leader Maulana Fazlullah was reported to be surrounded by Pakistani troops, and there were claims that he had in fact already been arrested. Their collapse in Swat, if confirmed, will deal a serious blow...

EDINBURG — As the old adage goes, it’s better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it. With that in mind, say hello to the B.E.A.R. — the Rio Grande Valley’s newest tool to fight potentially violent standoffs and manhunts. The armor-plated vehicle stands more than 12 feet tall and can carry at least three six-member SWAT teams inside — or rescue 35 schoolchildren. A detachable battering ram at the front of the vehicle promises to smash through suspected drug cartel members’ reinforced lairs or other structures. Eight openings in the...

ISLAMABAD – Helicopter gunships destroyed a training camp for suicide bombers in Pakistan's northwestern Swat Valley, killing six Taliban fighters in an area the government had already declared clear of militants, an official said Saturday. The camp's trainees — including teenagers — were responsible for at least three attacks in recent weeks, an army spokesman said. Pakistan's army says it is restoring security in Swat and surrounding areas after a three-month offensive wrested the valley back from Taliban control, but suicide attacks and skirmishes continue, with reports Saturday of scattered violence killing at least 12 more suspected militants.

KHAR, Aug 19: Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, a senior leader of the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, claimed on Wednesday to have taken over the leadership of the militant organisation on a ‘temporary basis’.He told the BBC Urdu Service he was now acting chief of the TTP, replacing Baitullah Mehsud for ‘short time’ because he was ‘sick’.Maulvi Faqir told the BBC that Muslim Khan had been appointed TTP’s spokesman in place of Maulvi Omar. Muslim Khan is the spokesman of the Taliban in Swat.Maulvi Faqir said that Baitullah was ‘alive but sick’. He has gone underground.

WALLINGFORD - A usually quiet mobile home park was shaken Friday morning when about 15 officers from the U.S. bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local police descended on one of their neighbor's homes with force. "They had their guns drawn and were surrounding the house," said Jennifer Monroe Lynne Boynton, of 15 Hosford Bridge Road, went to her husband's truck for coffee money at about 6 a.m. and was pushed to the driveway and handcuffed with an officer's knee in her back and a gun to her head. ATF officers surrounded her father-in-law's home at Western Sands...

Just heard a massive government presence on Wilshire Blvd near the CIA offices - anyone close to know what is going on?

MINGORA: The militancy-hit people of the Kalagai area of Swat have raised a private militia and eliminated three suspected militants. The militia was raised after the people of Kalagai, situated some 30kms northwest of here, decided to use force to counter the threat posed by the Taliban. The leaders of the militia have called upon the government and the security forces to provide them with arms and ammunition so that they may ward off the threat effectively. A group of journalists, who were taken to the area in Kabal tehsil on Thursday by the security forces, attended a jirga of...

Federal law now criminalizes activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. ---------------------------cut--------------------------- Every year, thousands of upstanding, responsible Americans run afoul of some incomprehensible federal law or regulation and end up serving time in federal prison. What is especially disturbing is that it could happen to anyone at all -- and it has. We should applaud Reps. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), then, for holding a bipartisan hearing today to examine how federal law can make a criminal out of anyone, for even the most mundane conduct. --------------------------------------cut------------------ This is an inevitable...

George Phillips , an elderly man, from Meridian, Mississippi, was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things. He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?" He said "No," but some people are breaking into my garden shed and stealing from me.. Then the police dispatcher said "All patrols are busy.You should lock your doors and...

Late last month, Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo took the unusual step of filing a civil rights lawsuit against the police department of his own county. The suit stems from a 2008 SWAT team raid on Calvo's house that resulted in the shooting deaths of his two black Labrador retrievers. In pushing back against the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Prince George's County police department, the mayor is helping expose a more widespread pattern of law enforcement carelessness and callousness throughout the state of Maryland. Prince George's police originally obtained a warrant to search Calvo's home...

Drugs cops burst through a lecturer's front door, handcuffed him in front of his wife and three young children, then said: "Sorry... wrong house." Dr Ike Ogbar was reduced to tears after police in helmets and riot gear smashed their way in with a battering ram. Officers swooped after the address was given by someone who believed the Nigerian-born marketing expert was part of a Vietnamese drugs ring. Dr Ogbar, 35, whose wife Faith, also 35, and their three children, aged nine, eight and six, were present, said: "There were three massive bangs - I thought the house was falling...

Swat Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah and the rest of the group's most senior commanders have escaped the Pakistani government's operation, a Taliban spokesman said. Mullah Omar, a spokesman for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, denied reports from the government and the military that Mullah Fazlullah had been gravely wounded during airstrikes in his home town of Imam Dehri. "Fazlullah is safe and the government claim is totally baseless," Omar told Pakistani journalists. He also said the Taliban leadership had gone underground "as part of their overall strategy" once the Army launched operations in Buner, Dir, and Swat, Daily...

The leader of Taliban militants in Pakistan's Swat district has been critically wounded and is close to death, the BBC has learned. The information about Maulana Fazlullah confirms statements from senior government and security officials. A former village cleric, he founded the branch of the Taliban movement which eventually took over the Swat valley. After a recent offensive, Pakistan's army says it has almost defeated rebels in that sector of the north-west. It has been battling Taliban militants there for about two months and the government says it has regained control of the region. 'No medicine' The information about Maulana...

Indianapolis - A call to the city's SWAT team was the final move against one property owner who let his grass grow higher than a foot. Specially trained officers were called out to the 9000 block of Harrison Run Drive as city crews tried to groom one unruly yard on the northeast side.Harrison Run is a neighborhood well cared for. At home after home in this subdivision near 71st and Fall Creek Road, neighbors tend to their yards. That's why one in particular stood out - or in this case, stood up."We're talking about a foot and half tall," said...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – Suspected U.S. drones launched two missile attacks on Taliban targets in the South Waziristan tribal region on Wednesday, killing at least 45 militants in the latest in a barrage of strikes close to the Afghan border, intelligence officials said. The army said the top Taliban commander in another area of the northwest, the scenic Swat Valley, was wounded in a Pakistani airstrike. It gave no more details. South Waziristan lies close to the Afghan border and is the stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. Pakistan's military is also bombing and firing mortars at insurgent...

The “radio mullah” Maulana Fazlullah may be dead, according to still unconfirmed reports from Pakistan. After Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik announced on Wednesday that Fazlullah was seriously injured, Pakistan forces reportedly conducted an operation in an area in Swat which was the hideout of Fazlullah. Fazlullah was reportedly killed in the operation. Fazlullah was traced after he called the Tehrik-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi spokesperson, Muslim Khan, directing attacks, which was tracked by the forces. In his conversation, he admitted to being injured and surrounded, having lost many commanders. The Pakistan government had last week placed his family under detention. If Fazlullah’s death...

Prince George's County Sheriff Michael Jackson said Friday deputies acted "in a professional and acceptable manner" when they shot two dogs inside the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo last summer. During a press conference Friday morning in which Jackson made public selected details from an internal investigation, he said, "The release of today's findings are consistent with what I've felt all along — my deputies did their job to the fullest extent of their abilities." Calvo has filed complaints that police and deputies needlessly shot the dogs when they raided his house on July 29, 2008, after mistakenly...

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani forces used aircraft and artillery on Sunday as they stepped up an assault aimed at eliminating Pakistani Taliban commander Baituallah Mehsud. Security forces have secured much of the scenic Swat Valley, northwest of Islamabad, in the past six weeks and the military plans to extend its offensive to al Qaeda ally Mehsud, holed up in the South Waziristan region near the Afghan border. The military action came after Taliban gains raised fears for the future of nuclear-armed Pakistan, a vital ally for the United States as it strives to defeat al Qaeda and stabilize Afghanistan....

The Prince George's County sheriff's office has concluded that deputies did nothing wrong when they charged into the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights during a drug investigation last summer and fatally shot his family's two dogs. The findings of the internal review "are consistent with what I've felt all along: My deputies did their job to the fullest extent of their abilities," Sheriff Michael Jackson said at a news conference. The announcement drew immediate condemnation from Mayor Cheye Calvo. "It's outrageous," he said. "Not only is he not admitting any wrongdoing, but he's saying this went down the...

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan's military said Tuesday it had killed 21 militants in the past 24 hours of its offensive to crush Taliban extremists in pockets of the northwest, while three soldiers died. In a statement update, the army said: "In the last 24 hours, 21 miscreants-terrorists were killed and 18 apprehended in various areas of Swat, whereas three soldiers embraced shahadat (martyrdom)." As most of the conflict zone is cut-off to media and aid groups, there is no way to independently verify military death tolls. The number of civilian deaths in the fierce five-week offensive also remains unknown. Most...

Troops are encircling Taliban militants in their mountain base as well as the main town in the Swat Valley, a Pakistani general said on Friday. With scepticism growing about the progress of the month-old army offensive in the north-western region, the army flew a handful of reporters from foreign news organisations into Swat on Friday. An Associated Press reporter aboard the helicopter saw no cars and few people in the town of Mingora or on roads further up the valley. From the air, there was little evidence of the fierce fighting and air strikes that the military claims have already...

Officials in Pakistan say they have captured from Taliban forces important neighborhoods in Mingora, the largest city in the contested Swat Valley. The New York Times reported that authorities also said that 10 Taliban militants have been killed clashes with the Pakistani army Sunday. The newspaper reported that six troops were killed and six others were injured. In all, 14 militants were arrested in Mingora in an offensive aimed at helping to gain control of the Swat Valley from the Taliban. The Times noted that until this offensive, the military fight against Taliban forces was confined to the mountainous countryside...

In Pakistan there has been a real change in the past few months - the public has had enough of the Taliban and the army has gone to war. As a result well over one million people have been forced to flee their homes. I have come to a place about an hour's drive from Peshawar, 50 miles (80km) from where there has been intense fighting. There are many people on the move here who have run away from that fighting and they have brought with them eyewitness accounts of the brutal things they have seen under the Taliban's control...

Pakistani forces have regained control over 90 percent of Buner district and increased their stranglehold over Mingora, the largest town in Swat, the military said Tuesday as the operations against the Taliban in the country’s restive northwest entered their second month. “Ninety percent area of Buner has been cleared,” an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement said. “Security forces have made considerable progress in Mingora town. House-to-house search is in progress in most of the areas,” the statement added. Cordon and search operations were also continuing in Peochar, the stronghold of Swat Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah, ISPR said. In Lower Dir,...

Pakistan said Saturday it had retaken the biggest city in the Swat Valley, Mingora, from Taliban militants after a month-long offensive. Calling it a "great accomplishment," Pakistani officials said the Taliban's stiff resistance dwindled as government troops moved into the area, CNN reported. Despite pockets of resistance just outside the city, Pakistani Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told the U.S. broadcaster that "for all practical purposes, Mingora has been secured." Taliban militants stepped up attacks in other parts of the country as authorities clamped down on security throughout the capital, Islamabad, Friday in the wake of a string of deadly bombings...

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan says it is close to beating the Taliban in the Swat Valley, but battlefield success alone does not equal victory: Militant commanders are still on the run, local governments and police forces have been decimated and millions of residents are displaced from their homes. Even if Pakistan succeeds in eliminating insurgents in one of its most intense operations yet, the northwestern valley is just one of several militant strongholds in the U.S.-allied country — and not even the most important. Already, fighting is flaring in the semiautonomous tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, where al-Qaida and the Taliban are...

Taliban agents of US, India: clerics LAHORE: The Taliban are agents of the United States and India, and the whole nation supports the military operation currently being carried out against them, clerics said at a convention held in Lahore on Sunday. According to a private TV channel the clerics said those against the military operation in Swat were enemies of Islam as well as Pakistan. daily times monitor

This is what happens when you allow a fanatical Islamic organization to fester and grow: Taliban militants have burnt down more than 200 schools in Pakistan's restive Swat valley in the last two years and made all out efforts to prevent girls from receiving education, a media report here said on Sunday. The militants told the residents in the valley that if they were good Muslims they would stop sending their daughters to schools, 'The Sunday Times' said in a report from Mingora, the capital of Swat. "Every evening (Taliban commander) Maulana Fazullah, nicknamed 'Radio Mullah', broadcast the names on...

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistani troops on Saturday stormed into the main town in the Swat valley and fought street battles in a bid to wrest the capital of the northwest from Taliban control, the military said. Chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said parts of Mingora had already been cleared and that 17 militants, including an important commander, had been killed. The ground assault on Mingora, a city with an estimated population of around 300,000 -- most of whom have fled -- marks the most crucial phase of the military's blistering offensive against the Taliban in the scenic valley....

BANAI BABA ZIARAT, Pakistan – A Pakistani flag now flies over army troops dug in on a strategic ridge that until two days ago was held by the Taliban, a base where militants trained fighters, built tunnels and equipped caves with electricity and air vents. The takeover of the highest Taliban stronghold in the Swat Valley by troops who stormed up its jagged, rubble-strewn slopes is evidence of the success of Pakistan's month-old army offensive. The action has been welcomed by the United States, which fears the nuclear-armed country is capitulating to the militants. ... Several residents pointed to the...

An army unit has rescued a family who are claiming the Taliban tried to force them to marry off their daughters to members of the group in Matta tehsil of Swat, according to a private TV channel. The mother of the girls told the channel, “They were forcing us ... we did not want to marry off our daughters to them.” She said the Taliban also shot and injured the girls’ father, Hidayatullah, for not agreeing to their demand. Troops then launched a daring effort to rescue the family, and shifted them to a safer location, said the channel, adding...

PAKISTAN is to extend its war on the Taliban beyond Swat into the fiercely independent tribal areas bordering Afghanistan where Osama Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda leadership are believed to be hiding. “We’re going to go into Waziristan, all these regions, with army operations,” President Asif Ali Zardari told The Sunday Times in an interview. “Swat is just the start. It’s a larger war to fight.” He said Pakistan would need billions of pounds in military assistance and aid for up to 1.7m refugees, the biggest movement of people since the country’s split from India in 1947. To help take...

KOTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Taliban fighters are shaving off their beards and trying to flee from a Pakistani army offensive in their Swat bastion, the military said on Friday, as it relaxed a curfew to allow civilians to get out. The army launched an offensive in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, last week to stop the spread of Taliban influence which had alarmed the United States and other Western allies of nuclear-armed Pakistan. More than 900,000 civilians have fled and the United Nations has warned of a humanitarian tragedy unless Pakistan gets massive assistance. Clashes had erupted in various...

KOTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Helicopter-borne Pakistani soldiers swooped into a Taliban stronghold in a remote corner of Swat on Tuesday, as the United Nations urged help for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the fighting. The military's offensive in Swat, 130 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, is seen as a test of the government's commitment to face up to a growing Taliban insurgency and comes after the United States accused it of "abdicating" to the militants. The fighting has caused a civilian exodus from the valley, once a tourist destination, raising fears of a humanitarian crisis. A senior...

Andrew Leonard was watching television with his wife not long after returning from Ash Wednesday services when police burst through the front door of his North Baltimore home. He was handcuffed, plunked in a chair and told to keep quiet as officers rifled through the house and interrogated him for 15 minutes about drugs and a dealer he knew nothing about. As it turned out, police had the wrong house. The man they were looking for lived two doors down. Leonard, a 33-year-old chemist who has no criminal record, said he and his wife, a 29-year-old credit analyst, were frightened...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistan's military said on Saturday that a full-scale offensive in the northwest has put militants on the back foot following a pledge from President Asif Ali Zardari to eliminate the Taliban. Warplanes pounded rebel hideouts in the Swat valley, an ex-ski resort where up to 15,000 security forces have been deployed under orders to crush extremists in an escalating conflict that has displaced hundreds of thousands. "They are on the run," the army said in a statement, without making clear exactly how much progress it had made in driving militants from their positions. But the statement...

Jet fighters and helicopter gunships pounded Taliban hideouts and centres in various parts of Swat and Lower Dir on Thursday, killing 60 Taliban. “We have carried out airstrikes today on known centres of militants killing around 60 [Taliban] in Swat and Lower Dir,” chief military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told Daily Times by telephone from Islamabad. Military sources said 12 Taliban were killed in Shamoozai area in Kabal tehsil of Swat and eight others in Malam Jaba. Fourteen Taliban were killed in Matta, Shahdheri and Kooza Cheena. Taliban commander Ibne Aqil was also reported killed in counter-attack by the...

Taliban fighters are reportedly using terrified civilians as human shields today as fierce fighting tore through Pakistan's north-west frontier. Militants blocked roads with rocks and trees as the the army stepped up a ferocious ground and air assault. The military had relaxed a blanket curfew in the area, which should have allowed many thousands to escape the Swat Valley, the frontline in a bloody conflict between extremists and the government. But witnesses said civilians were forced to dodge blockades as well as bullets as the Taliban resorted to increasingly desperate tactics. Ayaz Khan, 39, from the Kanju area of Swat,...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Attack helicopters and war planes pounded suspected Taliban hideouts on Thursday as Pakistan vowed a decisive victory in the deadliest fighting to grip a northwest district in months. Thousands of civilians streamed out of the Taliban stronghold and former tourist paradise of Swat on foot or crammed into cars, as aid workers warned that the humanitarian crisis was escalating in the area. ... The military said nine soldiers died in the last 24 hours in Swat, including seven killed when militants ambushed troop reinforcements at the entry to Mingora, the main town in the northwest district...

Sufi Mohammad’s son Kifyatullah has been killed in shelling during the security forces’ operation in Maidan area; said family sources. The TNSM Chief, Sufi Mohammad, has been calling for an end to the military operation in the area since it started, threatening to abandon the peace deal with the government and making numerous objections to the implementation of the Nizam-i-Adl. Following this event its is uncertain how the TNSM chief will react, making the future of the peace deal highly sketchy.

MINGORA, Pakistan – Helicopter gunships and mortar teams pounded militant strongholds Wednesday, killing dozens outside emerald mines, the military said, as Taliban reinforcements poured down from their mountain hide-outs and seized homes and government buildings. The army began taking the fight to militants entrenched in both the Swat Valley and in Buner, just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the capital, as Pakistan's leader prepared to hear demands from President Barack Obama for forceful action from a struggling ally. The latest actions will please Washington, which is urging Pakistan to crack down on militants blamed for rising violence at home and...

Security forces launched operation in Swat after militants seized key government offices in the area. Sources said forces started operation in Mingora early today to regain the control of government buildings. Militants and security forces exchanging fire with light and heavy weapons. No causality was reported so far. Indefinite curfew has been imposed in Swat. Migration of local residents towards safer places from troubled areas has been halted due to curfew. Meanwhile, power supply remained suspended in the district for the second day, as Mingora grid station that was blown up two days ago by militants had not been repaired....