Free Republic

Dubai: This election has been unique and surprises keep on coming as the polling results are announced. Apart from Imran Khan’s victory, another important factor that has surfaced quite significantly is the worst ever defeat faced by the extremists and religious factions in the country. Top religious party chiefs such as Maulana Fazalur Rehman and Sirajul Haq were summarily rejected by the voters. Similarly, candidates of Labaikh Tehreek lost miserably and none of the candidates fielded by the banned religious outfit headed by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed could secure a seat. It is a clear indication that Pakistani people are freeing...

Pakistani protesters broke through a barricade surrounding the U.S. Consulate in Karachi on Sunday, September 16, leading to clashes with the police that killed one demonstrator and injured 18. Demonstrators were protesting against the controversial anti-Islam video released last week. Police used water cannons and tear gas on demonstrators when the protests turned violent. No U.S. officials have been harmed. Another protester was killed in Warai, Upper Dir district in an 800-strong protest against the film. Protesters had set a magistrate’s house and the local press club on fire, resulting in an exchange of gunfire with police. In Lahore, 8,000...

The US has offered a $10 million bounty for the Pakistani militant accused of plotting the 2008 terror attack in Mumbai, which killed 166 people, including several US citizens. The move was welcomed in India, but could anger rival Pakistan, which has been considering changes to its fraught relationship with the US. Hafiz Mohammad Saeed lives openly in Pakistan, occasionally giving speeches and appearing on talk shows, and founded the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the 1980s. The US considers it a terrorist group and Pakistan officially banned LeT in 2002 under US pressure, but the group still operates...

NEW DELHI: The agreement between David Coleman Headley and US authorities, under which he pleaded guilty to being part of the 26/11 plot in order to dodge the death sentence and extradition to India, has considerably abated the fear here that the Americans would let off Headley aka Daood Gilani, a suspected "double agent", lightly. It also marks a big boost to New Delhi's efforts to expose Pakistan's propaganda to project Lashkar as a group focused on J&K. Details of the "guilty" plea made by Headley validate India's claims about the Lashkar leadership masterminding 26/11, and suggest that the American...

The Pakistani authorities have confirmed the American findings that the imams of three mosques arrested on November 15 in Boston happen to be the close relatives of the founder of the deadly Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who now heads the Jamaatul Daawa. Pakistani interior ministry sources said that the three Boston-based imams — Hafiz Muhammad Hannan Hafiz Muhammad Masood and Hafiz Mohammad Hamid — are close relatives of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. The sources said they have informed the American authorities that while Hafiz Muhammad Masood and Hafiz Hamid happen to be the real brother of Saeed, Hafiz Muhammad Hannan is...

The founder of an outlawed Pakistani Islamist terrorist group, blamed by India for deadly bombings on trains in Mumbai in July, was released from detention on Tuesday under a court order. Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, former leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, was put under house arrest in the city of Lahore in August shortly before he was due to address a rally. Saeed was freed on Aug. 28 on the orders of the Lahore High Court but almost immediately re-arrested under a public order law which allows authorities to detain anyone without trial for up to three months. But a...

Three months after the RCMP began arresting 18 suspects accused of plotting terror attacks in Canada, an investigation by the National Post has uncovered a web of links to Pakistan. Today, in the first of four parts, the role of a Pakistani training camp is revealed.- - - BALAKOT, Pakistan - A worn footpath climbs from the Kaghan Valley highway into the lush mountains above the River Kunar, on Kashmir's western frontier. The locals all know where it leads. An hour's walk up the steep trail there is a training camp built by Islamic militants called Madrassa Syed Ahmed Shaheed...

Outside View: Pakistani jihadis in IraqBy Kaushik Kapisthalam A UPI Outside view Atlanta, GA, Jul. 6 (UPI) -- It is well known by now that the forces confronting the soldiers of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq include a significant number of foreign "jihadis." While U.S. attention seems to be largely focused on the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al Tawhid force, one group that hardly gets a mention in U.S. media is the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Lashkar-e-Taiba, or LeT, is a Pakistani Salafist (Wahhabi) jihadi group that was formed in 1987 as the armed wing of the...