Iran�s version of captured US drone makes maiden flight

Iran has put into operation a final version of the sophisticated US RQ-170 drone, which was captured in 2011 and later reverse-engineered by Iranian experts, says a senior Iranian commander. The domestically produced version of the US RQ-170 unmanned stealth aircraft has made a successful...

�Fish and Cat� wins NETPAC award in Australia

Acclaimed Iranian cinematic creation Fish and Cat has won the award of Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) in the Iranian Film Festival Australia (IFFA). Directed by Shahram Mokri, the horror drama won the highly coveted best film award in the fourth edition of the IFFA. The...

Kabul Bank Trial Underway, Final Verdict Expected Today

The open trial session of the Kabul Bank case launched Monday in the capital of Kabul in an appellate court following President Ashraf Ghani's six-week deadline to finalize the country's largest corruption case. Former chairman of Kabul Bank Sherkhan Farnood and former CEO of Kabul Bank...

Explosion injures 3 people capital Kabul

At least 3 people were injured following an explosion in capital Kabul on Monday, security officials said. According to Ministry of Interior (MoI) officials, the incident took place near Profesor Burhanuddin Rabbani education university. Sediq Sediqi, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior (MoI)...

Taliban Attack Kabul Police Headquarter

Kabul police chief's office manager, Colonel Mohammad Yasin Khan, was killed in a blast inside the Kabul police headquarter Sunday morning, a police official told TOLOnews on condition of anonymity. The blast took place on the third floor of the police headquarters. The type of explosion used...

Who is Responsible for killing Shiites in Saudi Arabia?

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE AR-SA MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Although Saudi authorities have accused al-Qaeda militants for a recent attack against a group of Shia Muslims participating in a ceremony marking...

ICC cites Israeli war crime guilt but �too busy� to prosecute

Today, the ICC decided that though Israel is “most likely guilty of war crimes” in their attack on an unarmed aid convoy in 2010, the International Criminal Court refuses to move forward.  An examination of the ICC and its new Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda brings another...

Iran �Snow� to compete at Singapore film festival

The Iranian drama Snow directed by Mehdi Rahmani has been selected to contend for awards at the 25th Singapore International Film Festival. The movie will be screened in the Asian Cinema section of the festival scheduled for December 4-14. Rahmani’s screen creation, which injects black...

Protesters in London demand release of Saudi cleric

People have held a protest rally in the British capital, London, to demand the release of prominent Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr whose death sentence was recently upheld in Saudi Arabia During the Friday rally outside Downing Street, the demonstrators raised their voices in solidarity...

Indian army admits mistake in killing 2 boys in Kashmir

The Indian army has admitted that its troops made a mistake in a recent shooting that killed two teenagers in Indian-administered Kashmir. "We take responsibility for the death of the two boys in Kashmir," the chief of the army's northern command, Lieutenant General D.S. Hooda, said in...

Dead bodies of 12 Afghan migrants brought to Kabul from Turkey

The bodies of at twelve Afghan migrants were brought to Kabul from Turkey on Saturday, the officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The officials further added that the aircraft carrying the dead bodies of the migrants landed in Kabul around 11:00 am local time. According to the...

Eight Insurgents Killed in ANSF Operations

At least eight Taliban insurgents were killed during a nationwide operation led by the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) said in a statement on Saturday. The operations were conducted in Nangarhar, Kandahar, Zabul, Uruzgan, and Nimruz provinces,...

Lt General Rizwan Akhtar assumes office as Pakistan�s new ISI chief

Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar, a close confidant of Pakistan’s Army Chief, took over on Friday as the head of powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Akhtar assumed charge of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) following the retirement of his predecessor Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam. Becoming...

President Ghani pledges robust investment on girls education

President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani insisted on robust investment on girls education, saying that educating a girl will have it’s impact on the coming five generations. He was speaking during the inauguration of USAID-funded Promote project which will seek to advance opportunities for thousands...

US airstrikes in Pakistan surpass 400

A recent study shows that the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan has surpassed 400 The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s (BIJ) report for October 2014 noted that the number of strikes alone in October stands at 18. The report went on to say that an average of 3.2 people...

Pakistani army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif arrives in Afghanista

The Pakistani army chief of staff Gen. Raheel Sharif arrived in Afghanistan on Thursday to meet with the Afghan officials. The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said Gen. Raheel Sharif is visiting Afghanistan on a formal invitation by the Afghan army chief of staff. Gen. Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the Ministry...

NATO Secretary General Arrives in Kabul

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg arrived in Kabul on Thursday on an unannounced trip. Stoltenberg, who took over as the head of the Western alliance beginning of October, visited a training center for Afghan special forces, where he told Afghan troops that NATO will continue its support once...

Boko Haram Leader Says Kidnapped Girls Married to Fighter

Nigeria's kidnapped schoolgirls have all been converted to Islam and married off, the leader of Nigeria's Islamic extremists claimed in a new video message.   The leader of Boko Haram also denied he had agreed to any cease-fire with the government. Abubakar Shekau dashed hopes for a prisoner...

Six govt. soldiers killed in east Ukraine fighting

At least six Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in fresh clashes with pro-Russian forces in the country’s eastern regions in the past 24 hours. "Our losses as a result of fighting were six servicemen killed and ten wounded," said Volodymyr Polyovy, spokesman for the National Security...

West media blitz to blame for Jabbari execution: Iran official

The secretary of Iran's High Council for Human Rights says the propaganda campaign launched by Western media is to blame for the recent execution of a convicted Iranian woman.  The Iranian government sought “to solicit forgiveness from the [victim’s] first-degree families....

Expansion of Rocket Attacks to Bagram Prison

Militant rocket attacks on Bagram Prison in Parwan province mistakenly injured 20 Taliban insurgents detained there, officials said on Saturday. The Taliban has released a statement expressing regret for harming their fellow militants. Attacks on Bagram Airbase, which houses the prison, have increased...

Ghani Promises Chinese Help on Peace Process

Since returning from his trip to China, the first official trip of his presidency, President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai has said that China will assist in bringing lasting peace to Afghanistan. In a press conference this week, President Ghani said China would provide very specific aid for specific security...

House speaker Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi accused of misuse of authority

A number of the Afghan lawmakers in the lower house of the parliament (Wolesi Jirga) have accused the house speaker Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi for misuse of authority. The lawmakers are claiming Mr. Ibrahimi spends 20 days in month on foreign trips and is not following the important decisions taken during...

Haqqani Leader Killed in US Drone Airstrike in Pakistan

Abdullah, a top Haqqani leader who was involved in the transfer of suicide bombers in Afghanistan, and six other insurgents were killed in a U.S. drone airstrike in a tribal area of Pakistan, according to the Pakistani Intelligence officials. Pakistani officials said the attack took place early Thursday...

Ghani Stresses Inter-Afghan Dialogue in Calls for Peace Talks

President Ashraf Ghani said the restoration of peace in Afghanistan through direct dialogue with the Taliban would be a top priority of his administration and called on the international community for honest support while on his trip to China, his first tour abroad as president.Ghani also made significant...

Delivery of 63 Mi-17V-5 helicopters to Afghan Air Force completed

The delivery of 63 Mi-17V-5 helicopters to Afghan Air Force was completed by the Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport with the supply of final helicopters on 29th October. Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC) announced the conclusion of the deal on...

Ayat. Sistani urges Iraq govt. to help Sunni tribes against ISIL

Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has called on Baghdad to rush to the aid of the country’s Sunni tribes in their fight against the ISIL Takfiris. In a statement read out by an aide to Ayatollah Sistani in the holy city of Karbala after Friday prayers,...

Pro-Israel Washington real �chickenshit�

So, an anonymous White House official dared to call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a chickenshit this week. And the media is full of it, pondering on whether the vulgarity foreshadows a strategic rupture between Washington and its favorite client regime. Come off it. The frisson...

A 9-month Old Shiite Girl Slains at Imam Hussain Majlis in Karachi

When children are killed in the hail of virulent hatred there is a special kind of barbarity. Children have no agency, not even the slightest shred of the responsibility or complicity that adults to one degree or another may possess for their beliefs. They are not yet old enough to question the choice...

Afghan retreat echoes of Vietnam defeat

It didn’t quite garner the same media highlight, but nevertheless there was the unmistakable comparison this week between the evacuation of American troops from southern Afghanistan and the Fall of Saigon, South Vietnam, in 1975. Both events mark embarrassing retreats by a failing American...