I previously wrote about this story back on Aug. 20 and Sept. 2. After being arrested for blasphemy and threatened with death based on the hearsay of a Christian-hating Muslim iman, an 11 year-old girl has been released and the charges dropped.
Imagine a place where you can be accused of blasphemy and threatened with the death penalty based on hearsay and with virtually no witnesses. Welcome to Mehrabadi, Pakistan, just outside the city of Islamabad, where radical Islam thrives.
This is what the Taliban and militants in Pakistan have been up to … kidnapping muslim physicians who are work for the Red Cross, demanding ransom, and beheading them if they don’t get the cash.
A senior official in Pakistan’s government admitted to ABC News that current and/or retired intelligence officers did help aid and shelter Osama bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad.
Credit where credit is due. After years of intelligence gathering – that may have started with enhanced interrogation techniques at Gitmo – reports this morning indicate President Obama was provided with an option to bomb the suspected bin Ladin compound in Pakistan. Obama wanted – and we needed – proof of death.
A magnificent mission of the four-door Navy SEALs, and it took plenty of guts on the part of this president to pull the trigger on this one. But it certainly didn’t take long for the left stream media to take a shot at President Bush. Make no mistake this is a great accomplishment for the young president. But let’s not forget the groundwork and intelligence was laid by the Bush administration. Still, CNN and Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman couldn’t resist the moment. Video below the fold. Read more
If getting tough on the bad guys is creating terrorists, then so be it … but using the lefty logic of the day … why yes he is, if we apply the GITMO standard. Hat Tip to Steve for pointing this one out. Read more
We have identified the international issue that may haunt the Obama administration in the future. It’s the not-so-far-fetched possibility the Taliban – who have been migrating from Afghanistan into Pakistan – will soon have access to nuclear weapons.
The negotiation for “peace” with Taliban leadership will be a devastating mistake. Within the past three months, the Pakistani government reached an agreement with the Taliban that allows them to uphold strict Islamic sharia law throughout a large portion of northwest Pakistan. But it is important to note the government has been giving up control of Pakistani land along the Afghanistan border for years.
The very crude (approximate) maps that I’ve tried to put together shows the Taliban in control of more than 15 percent of the country.
Now, we’ve got reports of Taliban monitoring and patrolling areas outside of the agreed territory. If you think Iran getting nuclear weapons would be a bad thing, how do you feel about the Taliban having the same – really more advanced – technology? From the AP, with my emphasis added.
ISLAMABAD – Taliban militants have extended their grip in northwestern Pakistan, pushing out from a valley where the government has agreed to impose Islamic law and patrolling villages as close as 60 miles from the capital. Police and officials appear to have fled as armed militants also broadcast radio sermons and spread fear in Buner district, just 60 miles from Islamabad, officials and witnesses said Wednesday.
It started in mid-2006, and has been getting worse.
INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS woke up on September 5 [2006] to unsettling news. The government of Pakistan, they learned, had entered into a peace agreement with the Taliban insurgency that essentially cedes authority in North Waziristan, the mountainous tribal region bordering Afghanistan, to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Just ten days later, the blow was compounded when the government of Pakistan released a large number of jihadists from prison. Together, these events may constitute the most significant development in the global war on terror in the past year–yet the media have taken little notice.
So, just what is the Taliban’s version of sharia law? Just to start…
So far, the Pakistani Taliban’s interpretation of sharia has included banning girls from school, forcing women inside and outlawing forms of entertainment.
Yeah, that’s going to go over really well, but it’s nothing considering the Taliban could get their hands on operable nuclear weapons within a few weeks if the country falls.
We need to be discussing this and not ignoring the obvious problem.
Update: Allah at Hot Air thinks it may be time to start freaking out about Pakistan.
The Houston Chronical’s Study, Iraq had no link to al-Qaida, confirms information that we already knew; there was not an operational link between Iraq and al-Qaida. But what about informal links to al-Qiada and direct links to other terrorist organizations? Hot Air’s post Saddam had “no operational ties” to AQ: Pentagon, got me into a research mode this afternoon.
During the days after Sept. 11, 2001 there was quite a ruckus going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Within days, thousands of Afghans began to flee Kabul. Since the Taliban was enthusiastically supporting al-Qaida, and al-Qaida recently attacked the United States, it was time to get out of Dodge. Read more