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The Taliban doubtless said that their governance would be different this time. Developments on the ground, however, tell a different story Three issues have emerged as being of key concern to the United States and the European Union—whose representatives have recently met those of the Taliban-- and members of G-20, in respect of the developments in Afghanistan. These are the humanitarian situation in that country, the danger of its becoming a spawning ground of international Islamist terrorism, as it had become during the earlier Taliban dispensation (1996-2001), and the human rights of all Afghans, particularly women, girls and the minorities....

On this episode of The Resistance Library Podcast, Sam and Dave discuss the 9/11 attacks, Al-Qaeda, and the domestic fall-out from America’s secret war. With American military personnel now entering service who were not even alive on 9/11, this seems an appropriate time to reexamine the events of September 11, 2001 – the opaque motives for the attacks, the equally opaque motives for the counter-offensive by the United States and its allies known as the Global War on Terror, and the domestic fall-out for Americans concerned about the erosion of their civil liberties on the homefront. Before venturing further, it’s...

Badri 313: The Taliban's special operations unit The question is how was the Taliban able to raise such a sophisticated force and who trained and armed its members? After the unceremonious fall of Kabul there have been numerous reports of Taliban Special Forces Units patrolling the Afghan capital. They are always dressed in tactical outfits ready for deployment at a moment’s notice instead of the traditional ‘salwar’ suit. Carrying US-made M4 rifles, US-style night vision devices, body armour, tactical kneepads, and tactical radios, they are capable of achieving any objective with relative ease. The question is how was the Taliban...

Pakistan's army and military spy agency trained al-Qaeda and then maintained links with the militants afterwards, Imran Khan has said. Pakistan's prime minister said his country had then made a major mistake siding with America during the war on terror after the 9/11 attacks. The decision had cost 60,000 Pakistani lives as the country battled Islamist militancy and Pakistan would have been better staying neutral.

President Trump has pardoned a former Army lieutenant who was convicted in 2009 of killing an Iraqi prisoner suspected of being an Al Qaeda terrorist, the White House announced Monday evening. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders cited "broad support" for Michael Behenna, of Edmond, Okla., "from the military, Oklahoma elected officials, and the public" -- including 37 generals and admirals, along with a former Pentagon inspector general -- as the reason for Trump's clemency grant. Sanders also said Behenna had been a "model prisoner" while serving his sentence. "In light of these facts, Mr. Behenna is entirely deserving of...

"Elements of the U.S. military are clearly aware that much of what the U.S. is doing in Yemen is aiding AQAP and there is much angst about that," said Michael Horton, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a U.S. analysis group that tracks terrorism. "However, supporting the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against what the U.S. views as Iranian expansionism takes priority over battling AQAP and even stabilizing Yemen," Horton said.

President Trump’s nomination of Gina Haspel to lead the C.I.A. has revived debate over the agency’s post-Sept. 11 interrogation program and still-murky questions about her involvement. Now, on the eve of her Senate confirmation hearing, a striking voice is trying to join that fray: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Mr. Mohammed, the principal architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, was captured in March 2003 and tortured by the C.I.A. This week, he asked a military judge at Guantánamo Bay for permission to share six paragraphs of information about Ms. Haspel with the Senate Intelligence Committee. Ms. Haspel ran a black-site prison in...

A secret FBI investigation of the violent 'resistance' movement on college campuses against President Trump has led to an alarming discovery—the collusion between American anarchists and foreign terrorists in the Islamic State and Al qaeda, according to a confidential 'Informational Report' by FBI field offices. 'There is clearly overwhelming evidence that there are growing ties between U.S. radicals and the Islamic State, as well as several [ISIS] offshoots and splinter groups,' stated the FBI field report, which was delivered to Acting Director Andrew McCabe on July 11, 2017, and which is being published for the first time in my new...

We told you the other day that concerned citizens have stepped forward in Redlands, CA to question their local elected government about any plans they might have heard about to resettle refugees in Redlands.  Of special concern are the Syrian Muslims now expected to arrive in large numbers in the coming months.This is new…. CAIR is the Council on American Islamic Relations and is active (and makes news) in demanding rights for Muslims in America.  However, it is only recently that they have become publicly involved in the Refugee Admissions Program of the UN/US State Department as we told you about...

The FBI had advance warning of an al-Qaeda plot to bring down a commercial airliner on American soil just weeks before the 1996 TWA 800 crash that claimed 230 civilian lives. Now, a series of previously-confidential FBI documents obtained by investigative journalist Peter Lance and seen by MailOnline, provide compelling evidence that the crash was an act of terror orchestrated by the man now believed by many to be the true architect of 9/11. Speaking to MailOnline Lance said: ‘Who wants to have an act of terror on their watch especially an act of terror where an argument could be...

New evidence pried from the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) proves the point I have posited here at Ordered Liberty: The federal government willfully intervened on behalf of al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki on October 10, 2002, undoing his arrest on felony fraud charges when he was detained at JFK International Airport in New York, and allowing him to walk away with a Saudi handler. As I argued over two years ago, the government’s story to the contrary – viz., that it was moved by sheer coincidence on the eve of Awlaki’s arrival to pull the plug...

NATO believes they are setting up a base of operations against Russia in the Ukraine. Saudi Arabia is recruiting jihadists from across Europe, with 5000 to be in Ukraine, armed and trained both in Poland and Ukraine, in a month. However, command of this force falls, not to Kiev or even Langley but to the most extreme elements fighting in Syria and Iraq. NATO and now Saudi Arabia are establishing the Ukraine as a base of operations for Al Qaeda, AQIU (Al Qaeda In Ukraine). Many of those recruited are from veterans of the Syrian war, having survived the infighting...

Amply documented the Al Nusrah rebels are in possession of chemical weapons. In an unusual twist, An August 9, 2013 UPI report intimates that the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusrah rebels rather than the Syrian government constitute a threat to the security of Israel, an absurd proposition. And that Israel, so to speak, fears that chemical weapons might “fall in the wrong hands”. Troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have broken through rebel forces encircling the northern city of Aleppo to secure a major chemical weapons base that, if they can hold it, will be a big help to...

Al-Qaeda has now welcomed al-Shabab--the group responsible for the Kenya mall attack--into its ranks. Despite the targeted US killing of al-Qaeda leaders, more and more terrorist groups are joining the al-Qaeda network and expanding membership - what led former Australian intelligence analyst Leah Farrell to say, "al-Qaeda's bigger now than it ever has been." Both Osama bin Laden's death and the Arab Spring unrest allowed the al-Qaeda network to grow much stronger.

No further comment required . . . a picture speaks volumes.

Have you noticed who exactly the opposing camps are in Syria’s civil war — the aspect that the side chomping at the bit for American military intervention would prefer not to discuss? In one corner, we have Bashar Assad. Unlike President Obama and his minions, who spent their first couple of years empowering Assad — Obama reopening diplomatic ties, Hillary pronouncing him a valiant “reformer,” Pelosi huddling with him, Kerry wining and dining him — many of us alleged “isolationists” on the right were never under any illusions about him. Assad is an anti-U.S. thug, the junior partner of Iran,...

Infiltration by people with ties to terrorist groups is a major worry at the CIA, according to a Washington Post report. Some job seekers were found to have connections to groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, and the agency apparently has millions of dollars targeted at investigating its own staff, according to a classified budget document obtained by the Post from ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Among job applicants with questionable backgrounds, about one-fifth had “significant terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections,” according to the document.

Islamists said to execute 15-year-old Syrian boy for heresy AMMAN (Reuters) - Members of an al Qaeda-linked Islamist group in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo executed a 15-year-old boy in front of his parents on Sunday as punishment for what the group regarded as a heretical comment, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Mohammad Qataa was shot in the face and neck a day after being seized, said the pro-opposition monitoring group, which is based in Britain and uses a network of observers across Syria. "The Observatory cannot ignore these crimes, which only serve the enemies of the...

Israel -- and by extention, the West -- owes the Syrian dictator, BIG time. But why is Obama ignoring his lessons? (snip) ... Homeland Security Minister Gilad Erdan has been warning repeatedly that it is certain that Israeli population centers will be hit by Syrian ballistic missiles ... (snip) ... the second danger is that the weapons in Syria will proliferate far and wide. US officials have already admitted that they have lost track of much of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal. (snip) The party most responsible for the barbarous, protracted Syrian civil war that will almost certainly drag Israel into...

The Obama administration’s continuing efforts to maintain the narrative that murder of our ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and his three staff members was part of a “spontaneous” demonstration inspired by a “very offensive video” took another hit yesterday. The Debka File is reporting that the executions were part of a carefully orchestrated plan carried out by well-trained al-Qaeda operatives. The 20-man assassination team was given its orders by the terrorist organization’s leader, Ayman al Zawahiri. The assassins were all Libyans who had been serving sentences for terrorism under Muammar Qaddafi’s rule. They were freed when Qaddafi was overthrown.The motive...