Free Republic

The Pentagon is withholding hundreds of millions of dollars meant to reimburse Pakistan for its fight against terrorist groups, citing Islamabad’s failure to take “sufficient action” against the Haqqani Network, an offshoot of the Taliban based in Pakistan. The announcement on Friday comes as Defense Secretary James Mattis and the White House debate a long-delayed strategy for the war in Afghanistan that could adopt a tougher line toward over Pakistan’s role in the conflict. Defense officials and congressional aides have for months said that the new strategy won’t focus solely on Afghanistan, but take a more regional approach. This includes...

The Taliban beheaded 17 people, including two women, for attending a mixed-gender party where there was music and dancing, Afghan officials reported today. The decapitated bodies were abandoned at a roadside in southern Afghanistan, according to Mullah Sharafuddin, the governor of Kajaki district in Helmand province. All 17 bodies, including those of two women, were decapitated, but it was not clear if they had been shot first.

Can’t be true. Ransoms are paid for hostages, and Jay Carney assured me Bergdahl was a prisoner, not a hostage. This isn’t out-of-left-field speculation. Fox News reported two days ago that a ransom for Bergdahl was on the table inside U.S. intelligence circles as recently as December. The key point to grasp here, writes Lachlan Markay, is that the Haqqani Network, which was holding Bergdahl, and the Taliban are two different outfits. The Taliban are true jihadis, bent on reconquering Afghanistan. The Haqqanis are more of an Afghan mafia, bent on enriching themselves. Both have killed lots of American soldiers...

Tuesday on NewsMax TV, former U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Oliver North said U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was not a prisoner of war because he was actually being held "hostage" by the Haqqanis, a terrorist group separate from the Taliban and associated heavily with al Qaeda. North said he knew there was at least a $1 million dollar ransom being demanded for Bergdahl some time ago so he estimated the price paid to release the hostage must be close to $5-6 million now. ...more (w/audio)...

Those in the administration who authorized negotiations with the terrorists who are ideologically allies to those responsible for the murders of September 11th, 2001 will have to answer these questions: How did Sgt. Bergdahl fall into the hands of the Enemy? The official version is that he left his post without permission, yet on a video his captors released, Bergdahl says he was the Tail-End Charlie of a foot patrol and became separated. Which is it? Did he go AWOL? Will he be charged with desertion? Why did his father – who wears a full beard typical of fundamentalist Salafi...

I will confess to a dark suspicion that when Robert Bergdahl, standing next to President Obama, said in Pashto to Bowe Bergdahl, “I am your father,” it was some sort of coded message. I mean, what in the world was that all about? Does any father have to say such a thing to a son? Did he think Bowe didn’t know who his father was? But then I started to ask questions of people who had followed the Bergdahl saga, and they calmed me down a bit. The elder Bergdahl seems a bit odd. Look at the pictures. “A hippy,”...

WASHINGTON — When the U.S. State Department announced this week that it finally is going to designate the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organization, it was a nonevent for most of our countrymen. That's because few Americans know how deadly the organization is. For that we can thank those at Foggy Bottom who are wedded to the naive hope of a near-term "diplomatic breakthrough" in Afghanistan. Couple that misguided belief with the Obama administration's self-deception that the radical Islamic jihad against the West ended with the demise of Osama bin Laden and it's understandable why the Haqqani network...