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War On Terror: After 9/11, Pakistan promised to close its radical madrassas as part of anti-terror reforms. Now we learn they're not only still open, but also recruiting and brainwashing American boys.All told, 600 American children are being indoctrinated into jihad in 22 madrassas across Pakistan. A U.S. filmmaker stumbled on them while tracing the path of the London suicide bombers. He discovered they attended the same radical Islamic schools. A congressional delegation has confirmed his findings. One particularly radical school in Karachi freely displays a banner at its main gate urging Muslims to join the Taliban. At least 80...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

Excerpt - A suicide bomber has rammed a car full of explosives into the gates of the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital, killing 28 people, officials say. A spokesman for the health ministry said 141 people were injured, including civilians and security forces. The attack is one of the deadliest - after a relatively quiet period in Kabul. The Taleban have vowed to step up their attacks on the capital. ~ snip ~

via translation - Thousands of Islamists commemorate the storming of the Red Mosque Thousands of Islamist radicals gathered in Islamabad to celebrate the first anniversary of the bloody storming of the Red Mosque. The capital of Pakistan is placed under high surveillance. Many demonstrators deemed close to the Taliban and Al Qaeda brandissaient black flags and slogans scandaient paying tribute to the "martyrs" of the headquarters of the Red Mosque. The police established a security perimeter around the mosque, inaccessible by car, with son barbed wire and search pedestrians in the search for possible weapons. "We demand to act against...

Excerpt: SEOUL - South Korean police said Friday they have arrested members of a major drug-trafficking ring with suspected links to Afghanistan's Taleban insurgents. ‘Police have rounded up a drug-trafficking ring involving Afghans andPakistanis who are suspected of being linked with the Taleban,’ a National Police Agency spokesman told AFP. ‘They are suspected to trying to smuggle raw materials for heroin production into Afghanistan,’ he said. Police said two Afghans, three Pakistanis and four Koreans tried to use South Korea as a shipping point for several tons of acetic anhydride destined for southern Afghanistan. The chemical is heated with morphine,...

Fight Taliban, But Not With Weapons Washington Post, United States In today's war against Islamofascism, there's no stronger weapon than the free flow of information from the outside world. Show pictures of how a fellow Muslim country like Turkey or Malaysia is doing, or of how the once impoverished countries like India and China are advancing. It will be a much more potent weapon than the barrel of a gun.

The British expedition to Afghanistan is on the brink of something worse than defeat: a long, low-intensity war from which no government will dare to extricate itself. With the death toll mounting, battle is reportedly joined with the Taliban at the very gates of the second city, Kandahar. There is no justification for ministerial bombast that “we are winning the war, really”. What is to be done? In 2001 the West waged a punitive retaliatory strike against the hosts of the perpetrators of 9/11. The strike has since followed every law of mission creep, now reduced in London to a...

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

KANDAHAR CITY -- A teenage boy was killed and four Canadian soldiers were wounded in a suicide bomb attack against a military convoy Sunday morning in Kandahar City. The injured soldiers were evacuated by ground transport to nearby Camp Nathan Smith and then flown by helicopter to the multinational medical facility at Kandahar Airfield. Canadian Forces spokesman Lt. Al Blondin said later that all four are reported in good condition. Witnesses to the incident, which occurred at about 11:30 a.m. local time, said an Afghan boy was killed and two other local children injured in the blast, which occurred in...

An Afghan hijacker who forced an airliner to fly to Britain is now working at Heathrow, it has been disclosed. Nazamuddin Mohammidy, 34, was one of a gang of nine that threatened to blow up an internal flight in Afghanistan, along with 173 passengers and crew, unless they were granted political asylum. The Afghan hijackers forced the Boeing 727 to divert to Britain where they surrendered to police and the SAS after a 70-hour stand-off at Stansted Airport, Essex in Mohammidy, of Hounslow, Middlesex, is now working as an office cleaner for British Airways. The discovery came after he...

At least a dozen militants, including foreigners, were killed today in a missile strike on a Taliban commander's compound in Pakistan's restive Bajaur Agency bordering Afghanistan. Local residents said a pilotless drone fired two guided missiles at the compound of Taliban commander Maulvi Obaidullah in the Damadola area of Bajaur Agency late tonight. Pakistani Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar confirmed the attack but did not give details. Locals said Taliban fighters cordoned off Obaidullah's home and madrassa after the missile strike and did not allow people to approach the area. Pakistani TV news channels gave varying death toll figures. Dawn News...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

Planes, Trains, Armored Trucks, and Afghanistan Instead of “planes, trains, and automobiles,” my trip from western Nineveh to Mosul, to Erbil, to Vienna, to Stuttgart, to Atlanta, to El Paso, and then to Florida was much more interesting. It included helicopters, armored pickup trucks, trains, buses, cars and numerous jets. And the “fun” has just begun. After Florida there will be Washington, D.C., and then back to the war. As always, I beg forgiveness for the great difficulty I have responding to emails. In addition to all the travel there is also the endless homework. A big challenge has been...

<p>Sometimes, simpler is better — even in war and counterterrorism. Who would have guessed that a secret weapon in the fight to defeat terrorists and insurgents would turn out to be ... the mundane cell phone?</p> <p>As a general rule, insurgents worldwide don't much like the sight of a civilian holding a cell phone. All it takes is one quick phone call, and here comes the cavalry.</p>

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

TALEBAN warlords are using cash from Afghanistan's bumper opium poppy crop to try to buy shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles, the country's anti- narcotics tsar has warned. The surface-to-air missiles played a key role in driving out Soviet troops in the 1980s because they let mujahideen fighters shoot down Russian helicopters. Military commanders fear that such attacks could paralyse current Nato operations. Afghanistan's counter-narcotics minister, General Khodaidad, said the Taleban was busily scouring illegal arms markets for better anti-aircraft weapons. He said: "They are trying to get weapons to shoot down helicopters. They are trying to get ground-to-air missiles and they are...

At the National Theatre, a new play by the former radical playwright Howard Brenton, Never So Good, paints a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the Sixties Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who as a young man opposed Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Chamberlain's claim that he could talk Germany out of war and produce "peace for our time" is, of course, a byword for craven weakness and earns only contempt. But in the very week the play opened, a second Chamberlain was revealed in the form of our Defence Secretary, Des Browne. In an interview on Saturday, Mr Browne said he thought...

KABUL–Taliban attacks on telecom towers have prompted cellphone companies to shut down service across southern Afghanistan, angering a quarter million customers who have no other telephones. Even some Taliban fighters now regret the disruptions and are demanding that service be restored by the companies. The communication blackout follows a campaign by the Taliban, which said the United States and NATO were using the fighters' cellphone signals to track them at night and launch pinpoint attacks. About 10 towers have been attacked since the warning late last month – seven of them seriously – causing almost $2 million in damage, the...

The Foreign Office on Saturday dismissed as "inconceivable" calls by an ex-aide to former Prime Minister Tony Blair to open a channel of communication with al Qaeda. Jonathan Powell, who served as Blair's chief of staff between 1995 and 2007, said he would "want to find a channel to al Qaeda" if he was still in government, the Guardian newspaper reported. Only by talking to al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan could Western governments hope to secure a long-term halt in their campaigns of violence, he was reported as saying. But the Foreign Office said: "It is inconceivable that...

A retired Kuwaiti superstar singer has recently the left the Gulf emirate for Afghanistan to join ranks with al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in fighting foreign troops there, according to a press report published Saturday. Hussein al-Ahmad, who was until recently one of the Gulf’s most famous pop stars, decided to join “his Mujahideen brothers in Afghanistan to support Islam and fight alongside his fellow Muslims in al-Qaeda”, reported Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai Saturday. Al-Ahmad has previously told Kuwait’s Al-Rai TV that the reason he decided to quit singing was “a dream” where he saw his “own journey from this world into...

41 Taliban killed in south Afghanistan By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago Afghan and international forces killed 41 Taliban militants in a battle in southern Afghanistan, and a suicide car bomb attack on a convoy of U.S. troops left six Afghan civilians dead in Kabul, U.S. and Afghan officials said Thursday. None of the four American troops traveling in the two armored vehicles of the convoy was badly wounded in the Thursday attack, said Lt. Col. David Johnson, a spokesman for U.S. forces. The troops were traveling in one SUV and one truck, he said. Six Afghan...

Explosion reported, no further word on injuries or exact location. Just the title and "More soon" on the BBC site.

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Taliban militants are threatening to blow up telecom towers across Afghanistan if mobile phone companies do not switch off their signals for a 10-hour stretch starting at dusk. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujaheed says the U.S. and other foreign troops in the country are using mobile phone signals to track down the insurgents and launch attacks against them. Mujaheed has told the Associated Press that the Taliban have "decided to give a three-day deadline to all mobile phone companies to stop their signals from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. He says if the companies refuse, the Taliban will...

LAHORE: Intelligence agencies have once again arrested the Taliban Majlis-e-Shura’s former defence minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund along with two other Afghan nationals from Lahore, along with two other Afghan nationals, intelligence sources told Daily Times on Sunday. The sources revealed that Obaidullah had been arrested in 2006 in Quetta and was released after around nine months, after which he fled to in Afghanistan. This time he arrived in Pakistan to generate funds, the sources said, adding that he, along with Pakistani allies, had visited several cities in this regard. The sources revealed that Obaidullah had arrived in Pakistan in the...

Is the U.S. Failing in Afghanistan? It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said. Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammad Omar and their top commanders are hiding in Pakistan, posing a "huge challenge" to the security of the country and neighboring Afghanistan, a senior US administration official said Friday. "There is no question that the iconic leaders of Al-Qaeda -- (Ayman al-) Zawahiri, bin Laden ... are in the tribal areas of Pakistan," the official said at a media briefing. "We believe that the Taliban's shura (consultation) council leaders led by Mullah Omar reside in Quetta in Pakistan," he said, referring to the capital of rugged Baluchistan...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - Government officials held secret talks with militants and tribal elders as part of a dialogue that produced a cease-fire announced by Taliban gunmen who had been fighting Pakistani forces near the Afghan border, two Pakistani officials said Thursday. Benazir Bhutto's party condemned any dialogue between the government and Taliban militants, whom Pakistani officials themselves blame for the Dec. 27 assassination of the former prime minister. Few details have emerged about terms of the cease-fire, announced Wednesday by a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a militant umbrella group, after weeks of heavy fighting. The government of President...

Secret British plans for a Taleban training camp in southern Afghanistan are behind a spectacular diplomatic spat that has seen Anglo-Afghan relations plummet to an almost unprecedented low. Afghan officials claim the camp for 2,000 fighters was part of a top-secret deal to make the insurgents swap sides. The plans were discovered on a computer memory stick seized by Afghan secret police in December. The Afghan government claims they prove British agents were talking to the Taleban without the president's permission. The British insist president Hamid Karzai's office knew what was going on. But Mr Karzai expelled two top diplomats,...

Chad's future Taliban enters capital while the West is asleep The Transatlantic Conservative 3 February 2008 With the so called "rebel" attack on N'Djamena it becomes increasingly clear that the jihadist government and militia of Sudan expand their operations to neighboring Chad. Saudi-Arabia, Syria and Iran back the hardliners in Khartoum. The racist genocidal ethnic cleansing policies of the Arab muslim tribes in power in the Sudanese capital will can't be stopped by UN or EUFOR intervention troops anymore. Their only possible base of operations against the jihadis from Sudan WAS Chad. Chad is another piece of the map of...

Germany failing to fight Taliban, US claims By David Blair, Diplomatic Editor, and Harry de Quetteville in Vienna Last Updated: 12:43am GMT 02/02/2008 Nato has faced one of its greatest tests since the Cold War after America accused Germany of failing to fight the Taliban and urged Berlin to send more combat troops to Afghanistan. Frontline: The latest news from Iraq and Afghanistan Nato troop numbers in Afghanistan Behind this disagreement between the two allies, disclosed in a "stern" exchange of letters between their defence ministers, lies a crucial dispute over "burden sharing" which threatens the credibility of the alliance....

Islamabad, 31 Jan. (AKI) - US secret service agents operating in the remote border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan claim to have found five letters signed by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, Saudi daily Al-Watan said on Thursday. Citing unnamed local security sources, the newspaper said that the letters are allegedly handwritten in Arabic and bear Bin Laden's apparent signature and seal. They appear to have been sent last December to some of Bin Laden's followers in the region. One of the letters is addressed to the Taliban leader in Afghanistan's volatile southern province of Helmand, Mansoor Dadallah. In the...

Sometime in mid-December, as the winter winds howled across the snow-dusted hills of Pakistan's inhospitable border regions, 40 men representing Taliban groups all across Pakistan's northwest frontier came together to unify under a single banner and to choose a leader. The banner was Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the Taliban Movement of Pakistan, with a fighting force estimated at up to 40,000. And the leader was Baitullah Mehsud, the man Pakistan accuses of murdering former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The move is an attempt to present a united front against the Pakistani army, which has been fighting insurgents along the border with...

The US military in Afghanistan said that a Taliban-linked militant leader wanted by Washington had been killed in neighbouring Pakistan. Darim Sedgai was ambushed by unknown gunmen on January 16 and died of his wounds, the military said in a statement. The military described him as a "powerful commander" linked to a top Taliban leader, Siraj Haqqani, but did not provide any further details of the incident. The US military here reportedly announced a 50,000-dollar bounty for Sedgai in October last year, saying he was wanted for his ties to Taliban and Al-Qaeda militant groups. Sedgai was the third rebel...

 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...

Britain's last chance of securing this treacherous corner of Afghanistan lies in the hands of a piratical, black- turbaned figure with long beard, white cloak and silver-sequinned slippers with curled toes. Mullah Abdul Salaam may not look much like a white knight. He served as a commander in the Taleban and even today his true loyalties remain suspect. The 45-year-old former Mujahidin guerrilla could, however, decide the fate of the British mission to stabilise the lawless province of Helmand, where this week he was put in charge of the key district of Musa Qala. "He's not just the best show...

Still in Control Pervez Musharraf was calm, confident and—despite a flurry of rumors—not about to announce his resignation. Instead, the Pakistani president's "concession" to his troubled nation was an announcement that he would allow Britain's Scotland Yard to help local law enforcement agencies with their investigation into last week's assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Speaking in a nationally televised address two hours after Pakistan's election commission announced the postponement of the ballot to Feb. 18, six weeks later than had been scheduled, Musharraf was notably deferential in his remarks about Bhutto, often invoking her "martyrdom" and extolling...

'Bribes' free top Taleban leader By Alastair Leithead BBC News, Kabul The mullah is now reportedly back in Helmand fighting British troops A Taleban commander in Afghanistan responsible for leading attacks on British troops says he has been freed from prison after paying a bribe. Mullah Sorkh Naqaibullah told the BBC he paid $15,000 (£7,500) to the Afghan authorities to win his freedom. It was the third time that the leader, known as the "Red Mullah", had been captured and released, he said. Mullah Naqaibullah operates in Helmand province, where there is a large concentration of British troops. 'Released' He...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A key Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan has been dismissed for disobeying the militant group's rules, a Taliban spokesman said Saturday. Mansoor Dadullah was "disobeying orders" and conducting activities "against the Taliban's rules and regulations," said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid. He did not provide any details. "For this reason Mullah Mansoor Dadullah is no longer in the Taliban and no longer a Taliban commander," Mujahid said in a statement he attributed to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Dadullah rose in the militia's ranks as a key commander in southern Afghanistan after his brother, Mullah Dadullah, was killed during...

Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as "jirgas", with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer. An intelligence source said: "The SIS officers were understood to have sought peace directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia. The British would also provide 'mentoring' for the Taliban." The disclosure comes only a fortnight after the Prime Minister told the House of Commons: "We will not...

BBC documentary team "Panorama" followed a unit of British soldiers on a six-month tour to the front line in Afghanistan. It ended with one soldier dead and 12 seriously wounded.

Sarkozy warns of Taleban threat The French president (right) was greeted by his Afghan counterpart French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned the international community must not let Afghanistan fall into the hands of extremists like the Taleban. He was speaking on a one-day visit to Kabul where he met his counterpart, Hamid Karzai, and was due to see some of the 1,300 French troops based there. Mr Sarkozy recently pledged France's support for the US in Afghanistan. His office said the visit to Kabul was a reaffirmation of French support and engagement in Afghanistan's recovery. Accompanied by his defence minister,...

NATO claimed victory Tuesday in the four-day battle for Musa Qala as the Afghanistan flag was raised over what had been the only town held by the Taliban. NATO military leaders promised that the town in Helmand Province will get the decent government and economic development that was not provided before the Taliban moved in months ago, The Times of London reported. "We have a plan ready, and we will want to demonstrate that people will be better off with the Afghan government than they were with the Taliban," said Lt. Col. Richard Easton, a spokesman for the British military....

Calculating the Risks in Pakistan A small group of U.S. military experts and intelligence officials convened in Washington for a classified war game last year, exploring strategies for securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if the country's political institutions and military safeguards began to fall apart. The secret exercise — conducted without official sponsorship from any government agency, apparently due to the sensitivity of its subject — was one of several such games the U.S. government has conducted in recent years examining various options and scenarios for Pakistan's nuclear weapons: How many troops might be required for a military intervention in...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Four Taleban rebels were killed when their ammunition exploded during a wedding party they attended as special guests in a southern Afghan village, police said on Saturday. Eight other rebels were injured in the blast in southern Zabul province late on Friday, the provincial police chief said. "There was a wedding party and a group of Taleban was also attending as special guests. For some reason an explosion took place in the room they had gathered," he said. "In that blast four Taleban were killed and eight others were injured." Police were investigating, he added. The Taleban,...

U.S. to Offer Turkey Help on PKK The U.S. is to offer Turkey a package of measures to dissuade Ankara from mounting a large-scale military incursion into Iraq to attack PKK Kurdish guerrillas, who have killed scores of Turkish soldiers in recent weeks. Ahead of a meeting in Washington on Monday between President George W. Bush and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, U.S. officials said Ankara would have to get concrete American help to combat the PKK, which has bases in northern Iraq from where it frequently launches attacks into Turkey. “Erdogan has to go back with the...

Taleban capture district in central Afghanistan Text of report in English by Afghan independent Pajhwok news agency website Nieli, 6 November: Taleban fighters have captured the Kujran district of the central Daikondi Province. Local official and security forces reportedly fled the district headquarters without putting up any resistance. Security official Sultan Ali Urozgani told Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday [6 November] the resurgent militants were in control of the district, which they attacked from three directions late Monday night. One Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier was killed in the ensuing clash. Government forces retreated in a tactical move but...

LAHORE: An all-out battle for control of North and South Waziristan is about to commence between the army, the Taliban and their Al Qaeda adherents, according to a report published in The Asia Times. The report states that a Pakistani security official, speaking to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, said the army aimed to completely pacify the two Waziristans “once and for all”. According to the report, the fighting in North Waziristan that erupted two weeks ago and turned thousands of families into refugees while killing more people than any India-Pakistan war, is merely a precursor of the...

The US-led coalition force in Afghanistan says that more than 160 Taleban fighters have been killed in two days of fighting in the south. They say that more than 100 insurgents were killed in Helmand province, and at least 65 in neighbouring Uruzgan. One coalition soldier died, US forces said. The Taleban denied the figures, which could not be independently verified. Villagers said there had been a large number of civilian deaths from aerial bombardments in both provinces. The latest violence comes as Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in New York to address the UN General Assembly. He has been...

Hardline takeover of British mosques       Andrew Norfolk   Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to “shed blood” for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found. Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to...