Taliban - Page 50

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Barack Obama announced changes to his plans to draw down the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, saying the United States will maintain 8,400 troops in the country into 2017 as he acknowledged that after more than 14 years of war “the security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious.”

Contents: Bangladesh tries to recover from Dhaka terror attack, the worst in 40 years; Suspicions that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency supported the Dhaka attack

Pakistan is funding the Afghanistan-based terrorist activities of the regional Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) branch, Afghan political experts have declared, echoing a national security adviser for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has released a video message warning the United States that it will face the “gravest consequences” if Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is executed. Tsarnaev, 21, was sentenced to death by lethal injection last year.

A U.S. Green Beret in Afghanistan recently declared that America is “not at war with the Taliban,” reflecting the rules of engagement implemented by President Barack Obama, which allow lawyers to dictate when military force is justified, reports The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

The Taliban and its rival, the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), have launched competing claims for a deadly terrorist attack that occurred Monday in the Afghan capital of Kabul, reports NBC News.

The Taliban is exploiting the prevalent centuries-old pedophilic custom of bacha bazi, or “playing with boys,” to launch deadly attacks against police in southern Afghanistan, using the officers’ affinity for child sex slaves against them, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The Taliban are using child sex slaves to mount crippling insider attacks on police in southern Afghanistan, exploiting the pervasive practice of “bacha bazi” — paedophilic boy play — to infiltrate security ranks, multiple officials and survivors of such assaults told AFP.

Former Department of Homeland Security official Philip Haney wishes he was more surprised by the Orlando terrorist attack, but as he pointed out on Breitbart News Daily this week, the attack came from exactly the sort of Islamic radical network he got in trouble for studying too carefully.

On Tuesday’s edition of Breitbart News Daily, former FBI Counterterrorism Center instructor Kim Jensen told SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon that the establishment of the Islamic State as a “caliphate” was no mere formality — it was a defining event in the War on Terror, and will stand as one of President Barack Obama’s greatest failures, a legacy that will unfortunately last long after he leaves office.

Former FBI Counterterrorism Center instructor Kim Jensen looked at the horrific jihadi knife murder of a Paris police officer and his wife on Tuesday’s Breitbart News Daily with host Stephen K. Bannon.

“We have to acknowledge that we’re in a war against Islamic fascism,” Blackwater CEO and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince told SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon on Tuesday’s edition of Breitbart News Daily. “It is Islamic Sunni fascism, or Shia fascism, but it is fascism — that which seeks to force its own adherence, to live a certain way, and to force that way of life onto anyone it contacts.”

Contents: Al-Qaeda leader swears allegiance to Taliban’s new leader; ISIS losing ground may have led to Orlando terror attack

A 21-year-old Afghan was “skinned alive” by the Taliban, who also ripped out his eyes, in “retaliation” for the death of one of its former commanders allegedly at the hands of a distant relative of the victim, The Washington Post (WaPo) has learned from a local lawmaker.

Video footage disseminated on social media appears to support reports that Afghan migrants in state sponsor of terrorism Iran have been recruited by the Shiite country’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to fight in Syria on behalf of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The situation in Afghanistan is similar to Iraq: a premature troop withdrawal, conducted with great fanfare for political reasons by President Obama, has turned into a disaster. On Thursday, the White House concluded what the Associated Press (AP) describes as “months of debate” and gave U.S. commanders greater authority to conduct airstrikes against Taliban targets.

Medal of Honor recipient Staff Sgt. Clint Romesha appeared on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon to talk about the experiences chronicled in his book Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valor.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, where he told lawmakers that terrorism is “incubated in India’s neighborhood” and said terrorism’s philosophies are common, regardless of whether being carried out by Sunni or Shiite Muslim groups.

Taliban jihadists replaced their Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) counterparts as the world’s chief perpetrators of terrorism attacks last year, with 1,093 individual attacks, according to the U.S. Department of State’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2015.

David Gilkey, an NPR photojournalist who chronicled pain and beauty in war and conflict, was killed in Afghanistan on Sunday along with NPR’s Afghan interpreter Zabihullah Tamanna.

British soldiers working to dislodge the Islamic State from Libya are using loud Bollywood music — the percussion-heavy genre popularized by Indian films — to annoy and disorient the enemy, according to multiple reports.

The “covert” relationship between Sunni Taliban jihadists in Afghanistan and Shiite state-sponsor of terrorism Iran has endured as a “marriage of convenience” for over a decade, primarily due to their mutual disdain towards the United States, according to various reports.

Contents: Death of Afghan Taliban leader exposes Iran-Taliban links; 50,000 civilians in danger as Iraq tries to liberate Fallujah from ISIS

Hundreds of members and allies of the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Jamaat-ud Dawa held funeral prayers across Pakistan for Mullah Akhtar Mansour, the late head of the Taliban killed by a U.S. drone strike this month.

Afghan Taliban jihadists, under their recently appointed emir Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, have reportedly vowed to continue fighting, maintaining their previous leader’s position against peace negotiations.

The recently named Taliban emir, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, has been described as an extremist religious cleric, rather than a soldier.

The U.S. airstrike that reportedly killed Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour violated Pakistan’s sovereignty, according to Islamabad.

Local officials in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, long considered to be the birthplace of the Taliban, have reportedly banned radio stations from airing songs performed by women, according to various media outlets in the region.

U.S. military troops are trying to persuade their commander-in-chief, President Barack Obama, to once again grant them the authority to carry out offensive operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan, reports the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

The Obama administration is using U.S. taxpayer funds to support an Afghan government program that is providing financial and military aid to a Taliban splinter faction, one allegedly linked to the growing Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Afghanistan.

Contents: Death of Afghan Taliban leader complicates America’s relationship with Pakistan; Massive explosions in Syria target Bashar al-Assad’s heartland

Contents: Kazakhstan farmers riot over fears of encroachment from China; Afghan Taliban leader reportedly killed by US drone strike in Pakistan

Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump argued that with regards to the Middle East, “15 years ago, if we wouldn’t have done anything, we would have been much better” during an interview broadcast on Wednesday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.

The United States is working with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China to bring the Taliban terrorist group to the peace negotiation table, according to Islamabad.

A Green Beret, experienced in combat, slams the military command in Afghanistan and political leaders in Washington over a war effort in the South Asian country that he declares suffers from “moral cowardice” and a “profound lack of strategy.”

Afghanistan on Sunday hanged six Taliban-linked inmates, the government said, in the first set of executions carried out as part of President Ashraf Ghani’s new hardline policy against the insurgents.