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ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 eavesdropping program did not compromise its prosecution of an American Muslim cleric convicted of soliciting treason and convincing some of his followers to join the Taliban, prosecutors said. But defense lawyers are not satisfied with the government's claim, and on Friday a federal judge held a closed-door hearing and allowed attorneys for Ali al-Timimi some latitude to investigate the government's conduct. Al-Timimi, of Fairfax, a U.S.-born Muslim who studied under prominent fundamentalist clerics in Saudi Arabia, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison last year for soliciting treason and urging some...

Beau Bergdahl was a proven risk in Afghanistan going back as far as 2009, when more than once he left his post telling some in his unit he no longer believed in the American mission and wanted to do something else. A full (AR-15-6) investigation began then and remains classified. Bergdahl has a charge sheet and there is indisputable evidence that he willingly and with purpose left his base. It must be noted and remembered that at least 6 fellow soldiers died looking for Bergdahl and an unknown number to date were injured due to IED’s. So, it is important...

President Barack Obama marked a milestone Sunday on the way to one of the most important, controversial, and riskiest promises of his presidency: winding down the American-led coalition's combat role in Afghanistan in preparation for ending the long war there next year. American and British combat operations formally came to an end in Helmand Province, one of the bloodiest theaters in the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and a primary focus of Obama's 2010 surge of tens of thousands of American reinforcements charged with beating back the revitalized insurgency. But there were no White House statements issued Sunday to commemorate...

Venezuela’s Tarek El-Aissami The Americas Report | Oct 03, 2008  By Nicole Ferrand [...] Mr. El - Aissami is a Venezuelan national of Syrian descent who, before becoming Minster of Interior and Justice, occupied the position of Deputy Interior Minister for Public Security. His father, Carlos Aissami, is the head of the Venezuelan branch of the Iraqi Baath political party. Before the invasion of Iraq, he held a press conference in which he described himself as a Taliban and called Osama Bin Laden, "the great Mujahedeen, Sheik Osama bin Laden." Tarek's great-uncle Shibli el-Aissami was a prominent ideologist and...

The Islamic State is gaining acceptance and accumulating followers among Jihadist groups from the Philippines to Nigeria. But there is perhaps no Islamic State alliance more worrisome than its devotees in the Taliban.

Six senior figures in the Pakistani Taliban have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a symbol of the terrorists' expanding influence among Islamist groups. Withdrawing their loyalty to the Afghan Taliban's leader Mohammad Omar, the men - made up of the group's chief spokesman Shahidullah Shahid and five regional commanders - said they will remain members of the Pakistani Taliban, but added they now consider themselves affiliates of ISIS. The move is likely to have serious consequences for security in Pakistan, particularly near the Afghan border where all six of the men are...

Obama supports the Taliban. He insisted that Karzai share power with the Taliban. He insisted that NATO recognize the Taliban. Obama poses with Malala and supports her executioners. The Taliban aided and abetted Osama Bin Laden in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on America.

[MercoPress.com] VENEZUELA : Mysterious outbreak of hemorrhagic fever syndrome in Venezuela kills ten "An outbreak of a mysterious hemorrhagic fever syndrome in the Venezuelan state of Aragua and the country’s capital Caracas has left ten people dead in the last three weeks." Similar to Ebola, this syndrome causes patients to experience high fever, skin rashes and bleeding. It has been described as an aggressive disease that leads to a fatal deterioration of health within 72 hours. Doctors have urged government authorities to declare a state of emergency in Aragua state; however they have received resistance from a surprising source. The...

Veteran Neglect: A Navy and Marine Corps veteran asks a House panel why an administration that says it leaves no one behind has let a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder sit in a Mexican jail for six months. From the famous "latte salute" to the Marine holding the presidential umbrella, President Obama's respect for our men in uniform has been open to question. Unless, of course, they desert their post in Afghanistan to try to join the Taliban, like Bowe Bergdahl. Then you have the parents to the White House and trade the Taliban general staff to obtain their release....

Afghan soldiers brought to Cape Cod to be sent back to Afghanistan?: The three Afghan military officers who so infamously went AWOL from a military training exercise in Cape Cod ending up in Niagara Falls, Canada, crossed over the wrong border. If they had taken a different route to freedom over the porous U.S. southern border, they would have made it to the same kind of freedom millions of others of aliens have—and could even have one day sent back home for their wives and relatives to boot. Maj. Jan Mohammad Arash, Capt. Noorullah Aminyar and Capt. Mohammed Nasir Askarzada...

U.S. Army Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl was described as a hero by President Obama in a White House Rose Garden ceremony this past summer. This was nothing more than a dishonest stage-managed public relations stunt featuring the president and Bergdahl's grateful parents. Against strong objections from some U.S. military advisers, the president released five dangerous senior Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Bergdahl. Paul Sperry of the Hoover Institution recently wrote an authoritative article on Bergdahl in the New York Post. This has “become a political powder keg for President Obama,” he said. The headline of his piece —...

GHAZNI Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghan villagers hanged four captured Taliban militants from a tree on Saturday as security forces battled the insurgents for a sixth day in a district of Ghazni province, an official said. The hangings were carried out after Taliban fighters had killed more than 100 people in the area in the past week, including more than a dozen who were beheaded, according to Ghazni deputy governor Mohammad Ali Ahmadi.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Militants aligned with ISIS have launched a brutal offensive in Afghanistan alongside Taliban fighters that has left more than 100 people dead, local officials said Friday. Insurgents carrying the black flag of ISIS captured several villages in Ghazni province, according to Deputy Governor Ali Ahmad Ahmadi and Deputy Police Chief Gen. Asadullah Ensafi. Fifteen family members of local police officers were beheaded and at least 60 homes were set ablaze, Ahmadi said.

A major Taliban offensive in eastern Afghanistan over the past week has left up to 100 civilians and security personnel dead, 12 of them beheaded, officials say, as violence worsens with the withdrawal of US-led troops. This northern summer's fighting season has seen Taliban forces advance in several provinces, exploiting a political deadlock in Kabul over disputed presidential election results. The latest series of attacks have focused on Ajristan district in the eastern province of Ghazni, after offensives in recent months in Kandahar, Helmand and Logar provinces. 'The militants beheaded 12 civilians in four villages,' Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, deputy governor...

Three and a half months have come and gone and the Pentagon has offered no clarity on what happened to alleged Army deserter and Taliban collaborator Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Fellow soldiers and other critics fear the military’s now-delayed investigation is shaping up to be a whitewash. The case has become a political powder keg for President Obama. Since he traded five imprisoned Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, the US Government Accountability Office has declared the swap illegal, and nearly two dozen House Democrats have joined Republicans in officially condemning the move for making “Americans less safe.” ... His platoon mates... “Bergdahl...

Thank goodness we didn’t waterboard him or shoot him in the head on capture. Or drone him. That would have been wrong. A senior leader of the Taliban and al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) who was captured by Coalition forces in the spring of 2011 is now leading more than 300 jihadists in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz. The IMU leader once served as the top commander of the jihadist group’s network in Afghanistan.Qari Bilal, the IMU leader, was freed by the Afghan government at the direction of President Hamid Karzai, Afghan officials in Kunduz have told...

In parts of Helmand province, the UK and the US lost more soldiers in the long Afghan war than any other Afghan area. Helmand – where the fighting was long and hard. Helmand – where so many lost limbs or were otherwise terribly mutilated in a long and now lost war by a Nato now thoroughly preoccupied with matters elsewhere. But 6 September the New York Times published an important report with the story Kabuli officials want to cover up and nobody anywhere near Nato would want to tell. They are saying more than 200 police officers and Afghan soldiers...

World Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:55 Gov't: 86 Militants Killed, 62 Injured in Afghanistan Tweet TEHRAN (FNA)- About 86 Taliban militants were killed and 62 others were injured as the Afghan security forces carried out cleanup operations in different provinces within the last 24 hours, said the country's Interior Ministry on Saturday morning. "The cleanup operations were conducted by the Afghan police, army and the National Directorate of Security or intelligence agency personnel in Balkh, Helmand, Zabul, Kandahar, Paktika, Herat, Badghis and Kapisa provinces. Six militants were also detained in the above operations. Several Taliban local leaders were among...

According to reports, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has started distribution of pamphlets in bordering regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, in a bid to increase it’s influence in South Asian region. The Pakistani media agencies have reported that the booklets titled Fata (victory) have also been distributed in Peshawar city as well as in AFghan refugee camps on the outskirts of the city. ISIS calls on the local population for supporting the group’s struggle for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. The distribution of pamphlets comes as a number of hardline groups operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan...

Pakistani anti-government protesters stormed the state TV building on Monday, forcing the channel briefly off air as they clashed anew with police and pushed further into a sprawling government complex in the capital, Islamabad, in an effort to reach the prime minister’s residence. The violence is the latest in the turmoil roiling Pakistan, where anti-government cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri and cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan have been leading twin protests since mid-August calling on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign. Over the weekend, three people died and hundreds were injured in what amounted to running street battles between the police and the demonstrators. …