Free Republic

Pakistani police and supporters of Imran Khan fought pitched battles on Tuesday outside the former prime minister’s home in the eastern city of Lahore, injuring several on both sides, ahead of his possible arrest, a government spokesman and witnesses said. The police charged the supporters with batons and lobbed teargas shells. A few hundred Khan supporters gathered outside his house after a police team arrived from Islamabad to arrest him on a court order, government spokesman Amir Mir told Reuters. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) workers started the violence, which injured several police officials, Mir said, adding, “If Imran Khan ensures...

The United States has obtained intelligence that the son and potential successor of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Hamza bin Laden, is dead, according to three U.S. officials. The officials would not provide details of where or when Hamza bin Laden died or if the U.S. played a role in his death. It is unclear if the U.S. has confirmed his death. Asked by reporters on Wednesday whether the U.S. had intelligence that Hamza is dead, President Donald Trump said, "I don't want to comment on that."

FAISALABAD, Pakistan — The father of Imran Awan — an IT aide to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz who investigators concluded made “unauthorized access” to House servers — transferred a USB drive to a Pakistani senator and former head of a Pakistani intelligence agency, the father’s ex-business partner, Rashid Minhas, alleged. Minhas told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Imran Awan’s father, Haji Ashraf Awan, was giving data to Pakistani official Rehman Malik, and that Imran bragged he had the power to “change the U.S. president.” Asked for how he knew this, he said that on one occasion in 2008 when...

Blackwater involved in Bhutto and Hariri hits: former Pakistani army chief Tehran Times Political Desk TEHRAN - Pakistan’s former chief of army staff, General Mirza Aslam Beg (ret.), has said the U.S. private security company Blackwater was directly involved in the assassinations of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Blackwater later changed its name and is now known as Xe. General Beg recently told the Saudi Arabian daily Al Watan that former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf had given Blackwater the green light to carry out terrorist operations in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi,...

“Around 600 students of Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia have not returned to their homes after the Lal Masjid operation. These are the people called ‘missing students’ and they are hiding in madrassas and mosques in and around the two cities Islamabad and Rawalpindi. They are walking bombs and are determined to blow themselves up any time, anywhere,” said a source directly involved in the ongoing investigation of suicide blasts in the country.Lal Masjid prayer leader Maulana Abdul Aziz said that five to six hundred students of the two madrassas had been trained, equipped and brainwashed to carry out suicide...

Kuwait City, 5 Feb. (AKI) - The US air raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Abu Layth al-Libi in Pakistan is reported to have also killed three other leaders from the terrorist network. According to the Kuwaiti daily, al-Watan, two Kuwaitis and a Libyan also died in the missile attack conducted by a Predator aircraft on January 25 in Mir Ali, in North Waziristan on the border of Afghanistan. The daily said the attack was aimed at what was believed to have been an al-Qaeda summit meeting. Abu Obeida Tawari al-Obeidi and Abu Adel al-Kuwaiti were reportedly there with al-Libi.Abu Adel...

A prominent Egyptian editor who threatened that Americans could be slaughtered in the streets has been forced to backtrack on his remarks after they were reported by western media. In an extreme example of the growing xenophobic rhetoric by media outlets who back the country's army chief, General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, Mostafa Bakry made the threat on a major TV talkshow, also warning the US president, Barack Obama, and his "puppets" that "we will enter their houses, and we will kill them one by one". Bakry speculated that the US government planned to assassinate Sisi, who ousted Egypt's first democratically...

A court in Pakistan charged former military dictator Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday with the 2007 murder of Benazir Bhutto in an unprecedented move likely to anger the all-powerful army.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has alleged that elusive Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was a US operator who had tried to destabilise his late wife Benazir Bhutto’s government back in 1989. In fact, as premier Bhutto had “warned America about Osama bin Laden in 1989 with a call to then US president George H. Bush”, Zardari said on NBC’s Meet the Press programme Sunday. “She rang senior Bush and asked of him: ‘Are you destabilizing my government?’ because he (apparently referring to bin Laden) paid the then opposition $10 million to overthrow the first woman elected (prime minister)...

Pakistanis Reject U.S. Partnership By JANE PERLEZ Published: September 30, 2009 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Even with the arrival of the Obama administration and the prospect of substantially increased aid, more Pakistanis — an overwhelming majority — continued to reject the United States as a partner to fight militancy in their country, a new poll finds. The survey, conducted by the Washington-based International Republican Institute, underscored the difficulties the Obama administration faced in its efforts to tamp down Islamic militancy in this strategically vital nation. The I.R.I. is a nonprofit pro-democracy group affiliated with the Republican Party and financed by the...

Report: Pakistani president suspected of graft in submarine sale South Asia News Nov 10, 2009, 10:56 GMT Paris - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is suspected of having received millions of dollars in kickbacks from the 1994 sale of three French submarines to the Pakistani Navy, the daily Liberation reported Tuesday. In addition, investigators believe that the non-payment of the full amount of the agreed kickbacks may have led to the deaths of 11 French nationals in a 2002 terror attack in the city of Karachi. In the report, Liberation says it acquired documents that allegedly show that Zardari received...

(ISLAMABAD) -- Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is hoping to head off a potential military coup by imploring Pakistanis to reject attempts at usurping democracy. Zardari made his remarks Tuesday in southern Sindh province on the fourth anniversary of the assassination of his late wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto had just returned from exile two months earlier and was rumored to be seeking a return to power when she was slain on Dec. 27, 2007. [Snip] Zardari has always had uneasy relations with Pakistan's powerful military and his camp believes they will either try to remove him by...

'Benazir wanted retaliatory strikes on Indian nuke sites' August 31, 2009 12:12 IST Slain Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto [ Images ] had asked the Pakistan Air Force to be ready for attacking India's nuclear facilities, when reports surfaced in 1990 that United States, Israel and India were planning to strike Pakistan's nuclear establishments. In an interview with a private television channel, former Chief of Army Staff Mirza Aslam Beg revealed that Bhutto had directed the PAF to prepare itself for attacking India. Beg said Bhutto remained 'rock solid' amid reports that US, Israel and India were planning to attack...

Produced by Wild Eyes Prods. Executive producers, Carl H. Lindahl, David Keane; producers, Ryan Spyker, Aaron Cowden; director, Keane; writers, Bowden, Terrence Henry. Narrator: Bill Lloyd. Editor, Justin Inda; music, Michael Plowman. Running time: 120 Min. “Charlie Wilson’s War” (Wide Release Theater Movie) Genres: Comedy, Drama, Adaptation, Biopic and War Running Time: 1 hr. 37 min. Release Date: December 21st, 2007 MPAA Rating: R for strong language, nudity/sexual content and some drug use. Distributors: Universal Pictures Distribution Production Co.: Icarus Productions, Participant Productions, Relativity Media, Playtone Studios: Universal Pictures Filming Locations: Morocco Los Angeles, California USA Produced in: United...

More Dangerous Than Osama Militant Leader Claims He Is Fighting a 'Defensive' Jihad to Destroy the White House ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN: He is more dangerous to Pakistan than Osama bin Laden, analysts say. He may be the single most important person in Pakistan's fight for its future. And for the first time, he has described the goals and the details of the network of militants responsible for the most violent time in Pakistan in 60 years. During a 25-minute sit-down with al Jazeera, Baitullah Mehsud, the man Pakistan blames for killing former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, claims he is fighting a...

After her death, Ms Bhutto has emerged as an icon of secularism and modernity in the Islamic world, a courageous political leader and a champion democrat, a champion of women’s rights, and a fighter against the Jihadists. Her death has been compared to Gandhi’s and her political struggle to Aung San Suu Kyi’s. She was going to replace the rogue dictatorship of President Musharraf to institute democracy and secularism in Pakistan. In a thoughtful analysis, however, it turns out that the majority of these epithets bestowed on her career and legacy are not accurate. Her most devastating action, not only...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was praised in the wake of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for demonstrating her command of the players and the issues at stake in Pakistan, even as another candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, was criticized for stumbling over details. But in two confident television appearances, on CNN and ABC, Clinton made an elementary error about Pakistani politics: She described President Pervez Musharraf as a "candidate" who would be "on the ballot." In fact, Musharraf was reelected to the presidency in October. The upcoming elections are for parliament, and while Musharraf's party...

GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson is warning the biggest threat facing America isn't economic or social or even political: It's the danger from nuclear terrorism. "That the years ahead will be dangerous needs no elaboration from me," Thompson, a former U.S. senator from Tennessee, says in a new video prepared for Iowa voters who will caucus later this week. "Most Americans know the forces of terrorism will not rest until a mushroom cloud hangs over one of our cities," he said. Thompson, who is trailing several other candidates in Iowa, said those other issues, such as "economy, taxes, protecting our...

One of the natural and negative consequences of political assassinations is that they personalize the general and simplify the complex. Policies formed in the aftermath of assassinations are rarely wise and tend to focus on secondary - personal - issues while ignoring larger strategic ones. It is fairly clear that this is what is happening in the international reaction to last Thursday's assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zadawi and her teenage son have now taken charge of her political party in the interest of maintaining her "legacy." Backed by the Bush administration, they...

The assassination of former and potentially future Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has left Pakistan in complete turmoil. Elections were scheduled for Tuesday, January 8, and no one is certain as of this writing whether they will go forward or not. Nor is it clear who the candidates on the ballot will be, much less which of them might win. And then there's the issue of whether President Pervez Musharraf will step aside or even share power no matter the result.