Taliban leader boasts of eventual victory in Afghanistan

The Taliban fight against American and NATO troops in Afghanistan “is forging ahead like a powerful flood,” according to a purported online message posted Saturday by the Taliban’s elusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. “Anyone who opts to resist it will himself be washed away.

Share

Saudis reveal details of attempted assassination of minister

Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry has identified the suicide bomber who attempted to assassinate the country’s assistant interior minister last Thursday and released details of a phone conversation between the two men prior to the attack. The disclosures reported by the country’s official news agency were highly unusual

Share

Analysis: Dick Cheney’s claims reopen ‘waterboarding’ debate

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday said his claim that enhanced interrogation techniques — including waterboarding — produced critical post-9/11 information was supported by a pair of intelligence reports released last week. “The enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” However, the two dossiers that were declassified at Cheney’s request do not disclose what kinds of techniques were used to elicit the intelligence. The only method occasionally cited by the reports is a routine one — using information from one detainee to gain details from another.

Share

Former ‘enemy combatant’ pleads guilty

Ali al-Marri, once the only designated "enemy combatant" on U.S. soil, has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda, the Justice Department said Thursday. Al-Marri made the surprise plea during a two-hour hearing in a federal courtroom in Peoria, Illinois

Share

Can Pakistan Regain Control of Swat from the Taliban?

“Smile, you’re in Swat,” reads a billboard on the main road into the lush green honeymooners’ valley once dubbed the “Switzerland of Asia”. But over the past two years, Swat has been turned into a playground for the Taliban. And it may be the Taliban, and their fellow Islamists, who have most reason to smile as a result of the government’s decision, last week, to end its floundering military campaign and instead accept the Taliban’s key demand — for the imposition of Islamic shari’a law in the area

Share

Journalist killed in Taliban region

Attackers in a Taliban-controlled area of Pakistan shot and tried to behead a Pakistani journalist on Wednesday, according to his employer GEO TV. The slain correspondent, Mosa Khankhel, had been covering the recent peace deal between the Pakistani government and Taliban militants in Swat Valley when he was killed, GEO TV managing director Azhar Abbas said. “He is the first martyr of this peace deal,” Abbas said, adding that he believes it is unlikely the deal will end the campaign of violence that has centered in Swat.

Share