Gee, just what Musharraf needs—the State Department weighing in for his repression, augmenting the (accurate) perception that he is Washington’s toady. Don’t they have enough sense to keep quiet? This brings Pakistan one step closer to an Islamist coup, which… Read morePakistan: US-approved state terror
From Reporters Without Borders (RSF), via the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), July 6: Reporters Without Borders has condemned the arrests of two journalists by intelligence officers in the past six days. Both Mohammad Asif Nang, editor of the… Read moreAfghanistan: dissident journalists arrested
Security forces arrested Maulana Abdul Aziz, imam of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad, as he attempted to escape covered in a burqa with a group of similarly clad women July 4. More than 1,000 of his followers surrendered… Read morePakistan: Red Mosque imam escapes in drag —almost
Ten civilians were killed June 23 inside the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan in a mortar attack from Afghan territory—fired by foreign forces, a local authorities say. “Ten innocent people were reported killed when some mortars hit civilians in… Read moreWaziristan: NATO bombing Pakistani territory?
A NATO air-strike on supposed Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan has killed dozens of civilians, including women, children and a Muslim cleric, Afghan officials charged June 22. The clash began the previous night when Taliban fighters attacked NATO troops in… Read moreAfghanistan: air raid kills civilians —again
Pakistan is nearing completion of a previously unknown plutonium-producing reactor at Khushab, approximately 109 miles south of Islamabad, the third such facility at the complex, a new satellite photo reveals. David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and… Read morePakistan expands plutonium production
Freedom’s on the march. From India’s Zee News, June 19 (emphasis added): KABUL — Forced to wear yellow patches in the days of the Taliban, the homesick Sikhs of Afghanistan still hide in back alleys and yearn for India. In… Read moreAfghanistan: Sikhs still ostracized, terrorized
At least 22 people were killed and 10 wounded when a missile hit a cluster of compounds in Datakhel district of Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region, locals said. Taliban leaders said the death toll was as high as 32. Reports… Read moreWaziristan: 22 killed in madrassa missile strike?
At least seven children were killed in a US air raid against a suspected al-Qaeda hideout in the Zargun Shah district of eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province June 17. The victims are believed to have been students at a madrassa near… Read moreAfghanistan: slaughter of the innocents
At least 35 have been killed in a suicide attack on a police bus in Kabul June 17—the deadliest attack since the Taliban regime fell. Most of the dead were instructors going to work at the city’s police academy, but… Read moreAfghanistan: suicide bombings escalate
Jonathan “Jack” Idema, the last of three imprisoned US citizens convicted of illegal detention and torture in Afghanistan in 2004, was released June 2, Afghan authorities have confirmed. Idema, a former member of the US Army Special Forces, was arrested… Read moreAfghanistan: US citizen convicted of torturing detainees released
One Abdur Raziq contributes June 9 a brief account to the open-posting website Ground Report (“Where You Make the News”) of the Taliban crackdown on elements of traditional Pashtun culture which are considered “un-Islamic” in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas—Lakhtai dancing boys… Read morePakistan: Taliban threaten Lakhtai boys and “eunuch” dancers
