Afghanistan-Pakistan

Meyer deserved Medal of Honor, his comrades say

Dakota Meyer's commander had good reason to nominate the Marine Corps sergeant for the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military's highest decoration for valor. | 12/14/11 17:04:16 By - Jonathan S. Landay

White House response to questions about Dakota Meyer's Medal of Honor narrative

"The President was very proud to present the Medal of Honor to Sergeant Meyer for his extraordinary service in Afghanistan. As the President said that day, "in Sergeant Dakota Meyer we see the best of a generation that has served through a decade of war." — Tommy Vietor, NSC Spokesman | 12/14/11 17:05:10 By -

Roadside attack in southern Afghanistan kills 19 on bus

At least 19 Afghan civilians were killed Wednesday when their minibus struck a roadside bomb in southern Helmand province, provincial officials said. The dead included seven women and five children. | 12/07/11 16:47:51 By - Ali Safi

Pakistani president hospitalized; aides say he won't resign

Pakistan's embattled president, Asif Ali Zardari, is determined to resist pressure to quit, his close aides said Wednesday, after Zardari's sudden hospitalization in Dubai ignited feverish speculation about him resigning. | 12/07/11 15:57:15 By - Saeed Shah

Roadside bomb kills 19 in Afghanistan's Helmand province

At least 19 Afghan civilians were killed by a road side bomb on Wednesday in southern Helmand province as a mini bus drove over it, Daud Ahmadi, spokesman for provincial governor, said. | 12/07/11 09:15:44 By - Ali Safi

Rare attack on Afghan Shiites kills dozens

At least 55 people were killed and scores wounded Tuesday in a suicide attack that targeted Shiite Muslim worshippers in Kabul, raising the specter of sectarian violence even as the United States searches for a way out of the Afghan war. | 12/06/11 18:16:22 By - Ali Safi

As Iraq and Afghan wars end, costs mount on pace to rival Vietnam

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be winding down, but the long-term costs of caring for those wounded in battle is on path to rival the costs of the Vietnam War. While Vietnam extracted a far higher death toll — 58,000 compared with 6,300 so far in the war on terror — the number of documented disabilities from recent veterans is approaching the size of that earlier conflict. | 12/05/11 01:01:00 By - Chris Adams

Few grand hopes for major Afghan meeting

A high-level international conference opens Monday in Germany where representatives of more than 90 countries and organizations gather to discuss the future of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of foreign military forces. | 12/03/11 17:25:23 By - Ali Safi

Pakistan orders troops to return fire if attacked on Afghan border

Pakistan's top military commander has issued orders to the country's troops to return fire should they come under attack again from U.S.-led coalition forces in a move likely to increase tensions after last week's American-led raid on two border outposts that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. | 12/02/11 09:22:24 By - Saeed Shah

U.S., Pakistan offer different versions of attack on border post

NATO officials said Afghan and U.S. troops operating inside Afghanistan early Saturday had been fired on from the Pakistani side of the border and had requested close air support to help defend themselves. But Pakistan's chief military spokesman said he did not believe that there had been any fire directed at the Americans from Pakistan and said he did not believe the U.S. attack could have been inadvertent. | 11/27/11 18:29:32 By - Saeed Shah and Nancy A. Youssef

Pakistan targets U.S. troop supplies, drone base after NATO kills 24

Pakistan on Saturday blocked supply routes for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan and announced it would end American use of a Pakistani airbase in retaliation for a NATO attack on a Pakistani border outpost that officials said killed at least 24 soldiers and injured another 13. | 11/26/11 09:42:42 By - Saeed Shah

Woman who wants Pakistan's blasphemy law reformed is new ambassador to U.S.

Sherry Rehman, a high-profile politician under threat for her call to reform Pakistan's blasphemy law, was named Pakistan's new ambassador to Washington on Wednesday, one day after her predecessor was forced to resign at the apparent behest of the country's powerful military. | 11/23/11 15:43:34 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistan names human rights advocate to be ambassador to U.S.

Sherry Rehman, a high-profile politician under threat for her call to reform Pakistan's blasphemy law, was appointed as the new ambassador to Washington on Wednesday, a day after her predecessor Husain Haqqani was ousted at the apparent behest of the country’s powerful military. | 11/23/11 07:45:56 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistan ambassador to Washington resigns

A confrontation between Pakistan’s powerful military and the civilian government, over a controversial offer supposedly made by the government to the U.S. administration to rein in the army forces and its spy agency, led Tuesday to the resignation of the Islamabad’s ambassador to Washington. | 11/22/11 11:22:37 By - Saeed Shah

Afghanistan loya jirga sets conditions for new pact with U.S.

An overwhelming majority of the participants of a loya jirga or the grand council of elders on Saturday backed President Hamid Karzai's call for a long-term partnership with the United States that would come into effect after the withdrawal of international troops in 2014. | 11/19/11 11:12:50 By - Habib Zohori

Pakistan cracks down on obscenity in text messages

Pakistan's telecommunications regulator has ordered cellphone companies to monitor text messages and block any that contain any of more than 1,100 words and phrases that could be considered swear words, references to sex acts or terms of abuse. | 11/18/11 16:20:18 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistan roiled by claims of civilian move against military leaders

Pakistan recalled its ambassador to Washington on Thursday amid a growing clamor here over claims that Pakistan's civilian president had sought U.S. backing against senior military leaders in the wake of the discovery that al Qaida founder Osama bin Laden had been living in Pakistan. | 11/17/11 17:44:38 By - Saeed Shah

Kabul's unlikely housing bubble seems ready to burst

The war in his homeland was a boom time for Sayed Aman Abed. The Kabul real estate broker made a small fortune over the past several years as billions of dollars in foreign aid and reconstruction contracts flooded into Afghanistan, creating a robust market for homebuyers and renters in the capital. Abed, a slight, boyish 25-year-old, did well enough to pick up the entire tab for his wedding last year, which cost $27,000, a princely sum in Afghanistan. | 11/17/11 15:33:52 By - Shashank Bengali

Karzai: U.S. should end night raids, close prisons in Afghanistan

A four-day gathering of more than 2,000 influential Afghan elders began Wednesday to consider what framework should guide future relations with the United States, with President Hamid Karzai calling for a strong partnership "but with conditions" aimed at preserving Afghanistan's "national sovereignty." | 11/17/11 07:48:10 By - Habib Zohori

Karzai: U.S. should end night raids, close prisons in Afghanistan

A four-day gathering of more than 2,000 influential Afghan elders began Wednesday to consider what framework should guide future relations with the United States, with President Hamid Karzai calling for a strong partnership "but with conditions" aimed at preserving Afghanistan's "national sovereignty." | 11/16/11 08:41:39 By - Habib Zohori

Coalition says Taliban 'security plan' is forgery

Attempting to embarrass the Afghan government ahead of a major national assembly, the Taliban on Sunday published what they called the government's secret security plan for the event, including details of troop deployments and cell phone numbers of security officials. | 11/14/11 00:19:39 By - Habib Zohori

Jury finds Stryker sergeant guilty on all 'kill team' charges

A Joint Base Lewis-McChord Stryker squad leader will spend the rest of his life in jail for abusing his leadership position and persuading junior soldiers to join him in plots to murder Afghan civilians in combat-like engagements last year. | 11/10/11 18:22:22 By - Adam Ashton

Failed Afghan road project shows difficulties of U.S. rebuilding effort

Alleging corruption and theft, U.S. officials in Ghazni terminated a $10 million road contract, pulling the plug on a closely watched infrastructure project in this strategic province and putting themselves at odds with a powerful governor who coalition forces had hoped would be a key ally. | 11/10/11 16:38:25 By - Shashank Bengali

Crucial plan to reintegrate Afghan insurgents falling flat

The bid to make peace with Afghan insurgents is failing by nearly all accounts even as the U.S.-led military coalition plans to withdraw its troops and, within three years, hand control of security nationwide to Afghan forces. | 11/03/11 15:38:47 By - Shashank Bengali

Anti-U.S. politicians on the rise as Pakistan ponders elections

With expectations rising in Pakistan of an election being called within months, anti-American politicians are in the ascendancy, leaving the current pro-U.S. government facing defeat. | 11/03/11 15:30:07 By - Saeed Shah

Alleged Stryker 'kill team' leader grilled in military court

Defense attorneys for accused “kill team” ringleader Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs grilled the Army’s main witness for four hours Tuesday in a Joint Base Lewis-McChord courtroom. But one new image of an alleged murder victim undercut some of the doubts they raised about the witness. | 11/02/11 13:14:04 By - Adam Ashton

Taliban attack targets U.S. agency in Kandahar

Taliban insurgents crashed a truck filled with explosives into a checkpoint outside a neighborhood housing international offices in Kandahar, in the latest attack targeting the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan. | 10/31/11 05:31:18 By - Habib Zohori

Roadside attacks still bedevil U.S. forces in Afghanistan

Dismounting from their armored convoy on a desolate stretch of Afghanistan's most important highway, the elite U.S. Army route-clearance team knew what to expect. They'd been struck by roadside bombs there before, and they'd been shot at there before. | 10/31/11 03:16:46 By - Shashank Bengali

Taliban target base U.S. uses in Afghanistan

Taliban fighters wearing suicide vests and armed with assault rifles attacked a U.S.-run civilian and military base on Thursday in the southern city of Kandahar, killing one Afghan and wounding two others, officials said. | 10/27/11 15:32:39 By - Habib Zohori

War trainer brings a slice of Afghanistan to Camp Lejeune

After a decade taking the fight to the terrorists in the hills of Afghanistan, the Marine Corps has spent $20 million to bring a little slice of Afghanistan to Camp Lejeune. It took about a year to convert an old warehouse on base into the 32,000-square-foot Infantry Immersion Trainer, a high-tech re-creation of a rural Afghan village. | 10/26/11 07:21:07 By - Martha Quillin

Afghans wonder, too, about strategic pact with India

The wide-ranging "strategic partnership" that Afghanistan signed with India this month would seem only logical: South Asia's economic heavyweight cementing its longstanding political, cultural and trade ties with the region's neediest nation. But this is Afghanistan, and nothing is that simple. | 10/25/11 16:31:06 By - Shashank Bengali

Afghans find little to praise in new U.S.-led offensive

As U.S.-led coalition forces intensify their battle against insurgents in rugged eastern Afghanistan, many residents there remain skeptical of the chances for military success and worry about the fallout from increased fighting. | 10/24/11 14:37:10 By - Habib Zohori and Shashank Bengali

U.S.-Pakistan talks won't lead to military action against Haqqani

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that she'd won agreement from Pakistan to take some sort of action against the Haqqani insurgent network, but she suggested the action would not be military in nature, leaving unclear what her high-powered delegation accomplished during its two-day visit here. | 10/21/11 19:05:38 By - Saeed Shah

Killing warning missed in slayings of Afghan civilians

Joint Base Lewis-McChord's operations center was hindered by high turnover and inconsistent training when it missed an early warning that could have tipped off the Army about a series of murders allegedly committed by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, according to an Army investigation obtained by The News Tribune. | 10/20/11 07:49:58 By - Adam Ashton

In Kabul, Clinton urges Pakistan to step up fight against militants

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday delivered the sharpest U.S. warning yet to Pakistani leaders: Crack down on the Afghan insurgents based on your soil or pay "a very big price." | 10/20/11 06:18:20 By - Shashank Bengali

Clinton, Petraeus likely to press Pakistan on Haqqani support

In a rare display of U.S. muscle, the United States' top diplomat, its senior-most military officer and its spy chief arrive here Thursday for a tense two-day visit that's likely to focus on U.S. accusations of Pakistani support for an Afghan insurgent group that the U.S. blames for thousands of deaths inside Afghanistan. | 10/19/11 17:59:04 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

Pakistan inaugurates huge dam project, hoping U.S. will help with funds

Pakistan on Tuesday inaugurated construction of a giant dam that would help plug its crippling electricity shortfall, but without a hoped-for infusion of cash for the project from the United States and other international funders. | 10/18/11 18:31:47 By - Saeed Shah

U.S. steps up assault on Haqqani stronghold in Afghanistan

Explosions and gunfire erupted in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan Tuesday as U.S.-led international forces and Afghan soldiers began what seemed likely to become a new, coordinated offensive against insurgents whom American officials blame for a series of recent major terrorist attacks in Kabul. | 10/18/11 17:25:04 By - Shashank Bengali and Habib Zohori

Gibbs, Afghan 'kill team' platoon's leader, had dark side

Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs looked the part of the no-nonsense squad leader who’d keep his fellow soldiers alive when he joined a platoon three months after it hit the ground in Afghanistan. | 10/18/11 07:41:09 By - Adam Ashton

Investigation: Army platoon was 'out of control' in Afghanistan

More than 75 Afghan elders filed into a meeting with U.S. Army officers early last year to deliver a disturbing message: Soldiers patrolling villages in southern Afghanistan had, among other things, killed two innocent young men. They didn't deserve to die, the elders said. | 10/16/11 20:11:04 By - Adam Ashton

U.N. says Afghanistan routinely tortures war suspects

The United Nations on Monday said that suspected Taliban detainees are routinely beaten and tortured in detention centers run by Afghanistan's police and spy agency. | 10/10/11 17:57:45 By - Habib Zohori

Banned Islamists rally in full view in Pakistan's capital

A large crowd of Islamic militants rallied this week in the heart of Islamabad to voice support for Pakistan's army and to condemn the United States in another sign of a growing tide of extremism sweeping the country. | 10/07/11 16:58:50 By - Saeed Shah

Family of first soldier killed in Afghan war reflects 10 years later

Nearly 1,800 U.S. military members have been killed in Afghanistan since the war began there 10 years ago, enough to form a single-file rank of soldiers a mile long. At the head of that line – the first U.S. casualty in the war – is a Fort Lewis Special Forces sergeant whose wife and two children continue to live in the Puyallup area. Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Chapman. | 10/07/11 12:41:01 By - Rob Carson

Obama warns Pakistan over support for Afghan insurgents

President Barack Obama cautioned Pakistan on Thursday that it's jeopardizing long-term relations with the United States — including billions of dollars in military and civilian aid — by maintaining ties with insurgent groups that are fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. | 10/06/11 19:33:47 By - Jonathan S. Landay

10 years into Afghan war, Pakistan gripped by crises

Ten years into the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, neighboring Pakistan, despite receiving billions of dollars in U.S. military and financial support, continues to be gripped by an economic crisis and persistent terrorist attacks. | 10/06/11 15:49:59 By - Adeel Raza and Tariq Naqash

Indian-Afghan pact likely to boost tension with Pakistan

U.S. hopes that Pakistan will cut its ties to the Haqqani terrorist network have suffered another blow, and from a source that many Western observers might not have suspected: a pact between India and Afghanistan that calls for India to provide assistance to Afghanistan's security forces. | 10/05/11 18:22:29 By - Saeed Shah

Afghanistan says it's broken up al Qaida cell in Kabul

Afghan officials said Wednesday that they'd broken up an al Qaida-affiliated terrorist cell at Kabul University that was planning to assassinate President Hamid Karzai and carry out attacks in the United States. | 10/05/11 15:19:53 By - Habib Zohori

As U.S. marks war milestone, Taliban may be lying low

Ten years after the Afghan war began, President Obama says his strategy has turned the tables on the Taliban and allowed U.S. combat forces to begin withdrawing. But many Afghans counter that the insurgents are merely waiting out the U.S. drawdown, and worry that U.S. policy is turning the clock back to Afghanistan's pre-2001 civil war. | 10/04/11 17:59:13 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Afghanistan says Pakistan not helping in peace negotiator's killing

In a sign of worsening relations between two key U.S. allies, Afghanistan's government on Tuesday accused Pakistan of refusing to cooperate in the investigation into last month's assassination of the head of the Afghan peace commission — a plot the Afghans say was hatched in Pakistan. | 10/04/11 16:14:39 By - Habib Zohori

Pakistani military, civilian leaders close ranks against U.S. critics

Adm. Mike Mullen's accusation that Pakistan is supporting an Afghan insurgent group that's blamed for attacks on U.S. troops has done what no one else has been able to do: unified Pakistan's divergent politicians and its military. | 09/29/11 17:16:10 By - Saeed Shah

Why Pakistan supports the Haqqanis: Fear for its own security

To American officials, the Haqqani network is a criminal syndicate with al Qaida and Taliban ties that is frequently responsible for deadly attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan must sever its ties or risk being branded a supporter of terrorism. | 09/28/11 17:24:31 By - Saeed Shah

U.N. reports big increase in Afghan violence this year

Violence in Afghanistan is up nearly 40 percent over last year, a United Nations report released Wednesday found, contradicting claims by the U.S.-led coalition that security has improved since last year. | 09/28/11 16:37:17 By - Habib Zohori

Roadside bomb kills 16 from one family in Afghanistan

A minibus carrying civilians in the western province of Herat hit a roadside bomb Tuesday, triggering an explosion that killed 16 civilians, including children and women, provincial officials said. | 09/27/11 16:25:38 By - Habib Zohori

Few details known about fatal shooting inside Kabul CIA offices

One American was killed and another wounded when an Afghan employee of the U.S. Embassy opened fire Sunday night inside the CIA's office here, the embassy confirmed Monday. | 09/26/11 19:25:37 By - Habib Zohori

Pressure grows for listing Haqqanis as foreign terrorist group

Pressure is growing on the Obama administration to designate as a foreign terrorist organization the Afghan insurgent group that U.S. officials accuse of attacking the U.S. Embassy with the support of Pakistan's most powerful spy agency. | 09/26/11 19:24:02 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Gunman who attacked CIA office in Kabul was U.S. Embassy employee

An Afghan employee of the United States Embassy in Kabul killed one U.S. citizen and wounded another in an attack on a CIA office inside the embassy annex Sunday, a U.S. Embassy statement said. | 09/26/11 07:43:21 By - Hibib Zohori

Gunmen attack CIA building in Afghanistan capital

The attack Sunday night occurred at the former Ariana Hotel, a facility that the CIA took over soon after the start of the Afghan war in 2001. At least two Afghan army personnel were reported injured. | 09/25/11 20:22:25 By - Habib Zohori and Jonathan S. Landay

Pfc. Andrew Holmes pleads guilty in Afghan 'kill team' case

Pfc. Andrew Holmes had a bad feeling when he followed a command from a higher-ranked soldier to help search a teenage Afghan boy standing in a poppy field. Holmes knew his fellow Stryker infantryman, Spc. Jeremy Morlock, had been talking about killing Afghans in combat-like scenarios. He also knew Morlock was carrying a grenade he wasn't supposed to have. | 09/23/11 07:34:20 By - Adam Ashton

Afghan assassin claimed to carry Taliban peace message

The man who killed Afghanistan's top peace negotiator claimed to be a Taliban courier delivering audio messages from the insurgent group's senior leadership in Pakistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday. | 09/22/11 15:30:00 By - Habib Zohori

Afghan air force receives first three Cessna planes

Ferry pilots from Aviation Dynamix delivered the first three Cessna 182T aircraft to the Afghan Air Force on Sunday. | 09/22/11 13:39:25 By - Molly McMillan

Rabbani's death deals blow to U.S. peace plan

An assassin with a bomb hidden in his turban on Tuesday killed former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, the chairman of the government’s peace council, in the latest in a slew of high-profile attacks and a major blow to U.S.-backed efforts to draw Taliban-led insurgents into peace talks. | 09/20/11 12:03:35 By - Hashim Shukoor and Jonathan S. Landay

Pakistani Taliban target senior police official in Karachi bombing

A suicide bomber driving an explosive laden car rammed into the house of a senior counter-terrorism police official Monday, in the southern city of Karachi, killing eight people but the officer survived, officials said. | 09/19/11 06:38:27 By - Saeed Shah

Kabul attackers toted juice, weapons from Pakistan

The insurgents who besieged the U.S. Embassy here for nearly 24 hours came prepared for a long standoff: They brought blankets, water bottles and mango juice packaged in Pakistan, which lay strewn on the 13th floor of the unfinished high-rise they'd holed up in. | 09/14/11 17:30:30 By - Hashim Shukoor

Taliban launch attack on U.S. Embassy, NATO headquarters

Insurgent gunmen and suicide bombers struck the U.S. Embassy, NATO headquarters and other locations in Kabul on Tuesday in coordinated attacks that raised fresh uncertainty over the ability of Afghan forces to assume security from departing U.S.-led international forces. | 09/13/11 17:47:50 By - Hashim Shukoor and Jonathan S. Landay

Truck bomb injures scores at U.S. base in Afghanistan

NATO downplayed the impact of the explosion at Combat Outpost Sayed Abad, emphasizing in its announcement that none of the wounded had suffered life-threatening injuries and that most of the injured were expected to return to duty "shortly. But accounts from Afghan officials suggested that a catastrophe had been only narrowly averted. | 09/11/11 10:03:46 By - Hashim Shukoor

Despite war-on-terror gains, Pakistan still a haven for al Qaida

A decade after the 9/11 attacks, most international terrorist plots against the West have links to Pakistan, the country that became al Qaida's most important sanctuary after the United States chased the terrorist group from Afghanistan. | 09/09/11 15:28:36 By - Saeed Shah

Possible al Qaida revenge blast kills 23 in Pakistan

Two suicide bombers attacked the home of a senior military officer Wednesday in the western city of Quetta, wounding him and killing at least 23 people in a possible revenge attack for Pakistan’s recent arrest of a senior al Qaida commander. | 09/07/11 07:00:47 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistani forces capture senior al Qaida commander

Pakistani security forces working in co-operation with U.S. intelligence captured senior al Qaida commander Younis al Mauritani, the most important al Qaida figure in several years to be arrested in Pakistan, officials said Monday. | 09/05/11 17:24:43 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

Pakistan's largest city swept by gang-fed violence

Warring ethnic gangs have turned Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and the country's commercial capital, into a battle zone with death squads unleashing gruesome torture on ordinary citizens at a rate that far outstrips the much better publicized violence attributed to al Qaida-linked extremists. | 08/26/11 17:59:44 By - Saeed Shah

Gen. Hayden discusses Bin Laden hunt at spy conference

The organizers of Raleigh, North Carolina's annual spy conference have scored an espionage coup: The keynote speaker will be Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the only person who has headed both the National Security Agency (1999 to 2005) and the Central Intelligence Agency (2006 to 2009). And his topic will be one of the hottest and most current in the world of spying: the operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. | 08/22/11 09:33:34 By - Jay Price

40 worshipers killed in Pakistan mosque bombing

The serenity of prayers at a mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan was transformed into a bloodbath Friday in Pakistan's remote tribal area, when a bomb ripped through the congregation and killed at least 40 people and injured more than 100 others, officials said. | 08/19/11 14:40:57 By - Saeed Shah

Eight Afghans killed in strike on British compound

Suicide bombers equipped with explosive vests and guns targeted a British compound in west Kabul on Friday morning, triggering an hours-long gun battle with Afghan security forces and leaving at least eight Afghans dead. | 08/19/11 09:11:05 By - Hashim Shukoor

Roadside bombs kill 24 in western Afghanistan

Roadside bombs struck two minibuses Thursday, killing 24 people and wounding 11 in western province of Herat, Afghan officials said. The province had been relatively peaceful, and U.S.-led NATO forces handed over control of security operations in the provincial capital to Afghan forces last month. | 08/18/11 11:01:18 By - Hashim Shukoor

U.S. considers funding Pakistani dam project, despite tensions

Even as U.S.-Pakistani cooperation on anti-terrorism programs is withering, the United States is considering backing the construction of a giant, $12 billion dam in Pakistan that would be the largest civilian aid project the U.S. has undertaken here in decades. | 08/16/11 15:08:58 By - Saeed Shah

True cost of Afghan, Iraq wars is anyone's guess

When congressional cost-cutters meet later this year to decide on trimming the federal budget, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could represent juicy targets. But how much do the wars actually cost the U.S. taxpayer? | 08/15/11 16:20:13 By - Nancy A. Youssef

U.N. pushes risky plan to resolve Afghan election impasse

The U.N. is pressing Afghanistan's electoral commission to overturn for alleged fraud the results of 17 of last year's 249 races for parliament's lower house. The number is far fewer than the 62 contests that President Hamid Karzai wanted reversed, but stops short of granting opposition lawmakers' calls for no changes at all. | 08/14/11 17:34:45 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Hashim Shukoor

Taliban attack north of Kabul underscores Afghan insecurity

Taliban insurgents stormed into the governor's compound in a normally peaceful province north of Kabul on Sunday, killing 22 and wounding at least 34 in a dramatic demonstration that few locations in Afghanistan are free from the threat of attack. | 08/14/11 17:00:22 By - Hashim Shukoor

Taliban kill 22 in attack in province considered peaceful

Six Taliban insurgents equipped with suicide vests raided the governor's compound of Parwan province only miles from the largest U.S. base north of Kabul, killing at least 22 and injuring dozens of others in a gun battle that lasted less than an hour, the Afghan Interior Ministry said Sunday. | 08/14/11 11:00:36 By - Hashim Shukoor

Here are the names of U.S. servicemen killed in Afghan 'copter shootdown

The Department of Defense on Thursday released this list of the names of the 30 Americans who died Aug. 6 when they're Chinook helicopter was shot down by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. The remains of the dead were returned to the United States on Wednesday. | 08/11/11 23:20:16 By -

Pentagon to reconsider landing Chinooks in battle zones

Two Pentagon officials told McClatchy on Monday that an investigation into the helicopter crash that killed 30 American troops would probe whether it's a mistake to send the large, lumbering Chinook helicopter into a Taliban firefight, where it's a target for insurgents. | 08/11/11 09:50:58 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay

Airstrike reportedly kills insurgent who downed U.S. chopper

A "precision airstrike" killed the insurgent who fired the rocket-propelled grenade that downed an American helicopter, killing 30 U.S. troops in the heaviest U.S. military loss of the Afghan war, the U.S.-led international coalition said Wednesday. | 08/10/11 10:21:03 By - Jonathan S. Landay

In valley where SEALs died, U.S. raids boost Taliban support

The 30 U.S. soldiers, many of them Navy SEALs, who died Saturday in the U.S. military's single biggest loss of the Afghan war, were operating in a Taliban-controlled valley where frequent U.S.-led night raids have won the insurgents popular support, area residents said Sunday. The raids occur "every night. We are very much miserable," said Roshanak Wardak, a doctor and former member of Afghanistan's parliament. | 08/07/11 19:00:18 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Hashim Shukoor

Commandos killed in Afghanistan were fighting war few see

The 30 U.S. troops killed when their Chinook helicopter was shot down Saturday in eastern Afghanistan — many of them Navy SEALs — were fighting a war rarely talked about. They were not battling Afghanistan’s ingrained corruption, or building new roads or crafting nascent local governments. They were the ones who night after night go after the U.S.'s most-wanted of the war. | 08/06/11 18:21:18 By - Hashim Shukoor and Nancy A. Youssef

Helicopter Taliban downed was carrying Navy SEALs

A U.S. official in Washington confirmed that most of the dead were Navy SEALs and the AP reported that they were members of SEAL Team Six, the unit that also provided the troops for the May 2 raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan. The deaths marked the highest single-incident toll of either the war in Afghanistan or Iraq. It was the worst catastrophe for the U.S. military since January 2005. | 08/06/11 07:38:48 By - Hashim Shukoor and Nancy A. Youssef

In one tense district, Afghan crisis comes into focus

The atmosphere inside the district headquarters had grown as torrid as the pulsing summer heat outside when tempers finally exploded. The uproar that ended the traditional tribal parley last week was a measure of the volatility that's left Sarobi the only one of 15 districts in Kabul province that the U.S.-led international security force hasn't transferred to Afghan responsibility. | 08/01/11 16:27:08 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Kandahar mayor's kiling is another blow to U.S. plans

A suicide bombing that killed the mayor of Afghanistan’s second largest city Wednesday is the latest in a rash of high-level assassinations that have cast doubts over whether security gains in the Taliban’s southern heartland will survive the drawdown of U.S. "surge" troops. | 07/27/11 08:20:47 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Hashim Shukoor

U.S. drawdown, internal crises fuel fears for Afghanistan

The start of the U.S. troop drawdown and a raft of overlapping security, political and economic crises are fueling fears that Afghanistan could sink into wholesale turmoil and even civil war as the U.S.-led international combat mission winds up at the end of 2014. | 07/25/11 17:08:17 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Musharraf calls Pakistan 'negligent' in bin Laden fiasco

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Thursday that his country wasn't complicit in hiding Osama bin Laden but was "extremely negligent" for not knowing that the al Qaida leader was living a 75-mile drive from the Pakistani capital. | 07/21/11 18:44:26 By - Lydia Mulvany

Stryker soldiers discussed 'drop weapons' in Afghan civilian killings

Stryker brigade soldiers were open to talk of using “drop weapons” to murder Afghan civilians last year because it fit into other discussions about whether they’d need to plant evidence on legitimate killings to justify battlefield decisions, a private who’s pleaded guilty to murdering noncombatants testified today. | 07/21/11 18:11:58 By - Adam Ashton

Problems dog U.S.-led efforts to boost Afghan finances

U.S.-led efforts to bolster Afghanistan’s financial sector and prevent American cash payments from being stolen or diverted to the insurgency are hampered by loose controls, poor Afghan cooperation and limited coordination among U.S. agencies, an American watchdog said Wednesday. | 07/20/11 09:00:05 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Pakistani legal action targets U.S. drone program

A Pakistani lawyer filed charges Monday against the CIA's former legal counsel for authorizing drone missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal area that activists say killed mostly innocent civilians. | 07/18/11 18:20:23 By - Saeed Shah

Key Karzai adviser killed by suicide attackers in Kabul

On the day that NATO began handing off control over security to Afghan authorities, a key aide to President Hamid Karzai was killed by suicide attackers. | 07/18/11 06:18:33 By - Habib Zohori

CIA's bin Laden scheme imperils health work, charity says

The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders on Thursday strongly condemned the CIA's secret use of a vaccination program as cover for spying on Osama bin Laden's house in Pakistan, saying the ploy would damage public health efforts in poor countries. | 07/14/11 19:02:49 By - Saeed Shah

Civilian deaths in Afghan War hit record high

Civilian deaths in the Afghan War reached a record high during the first half of this year, a United Nations report said Thursday, documenting a worsening toll of roadside bombs and suicide attacks by Taliban insurgents as well as helicopter-borne airstrikes by coalition forces. | 07/14/11 16:10:04 By - Habib Zohori

Deadly blast hits Afghanistan at services for slain Karzai

At least five people were killed and 15 injured on Thursday when a suicide bomb exploded at a Kandahar mosque where hundreds were paying their respects to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's powerful half-brother, who was slain this week. | 07/14/11 09:11:41 By - Habib Zohori

As Karzai brother buried, Afghans ask who'll replace him

An emotional President Hamid Karzai kissed his slain half brother's forehead Wednesday and lowered him into a grave at his family's ancestral cemetery, a brief pause in the jockeying for who'd replace southern Afghanistan's political kingpin. | 07/13/11 18:16:56 By - Habib Zohori

Pakistan eases stance on doctor who tracked bin Laden

There were signs Wednesday that Pakistan might free a doctor it had jailed for helping the CIA track Osama bin Laden as Pakistan's spy chief flew to Washington to try to rescue the badly strained intelligence ties between the countries. | 07/13/11 17:34:24 By - Saeed Shah

Karzai brother's death worsens U.S. troubles in Afghanistan

In the end, Ahmed Wali Karzai personified America's dearth of good options in Afghanistan. He was a corrupt politico who became the kingpin of volatile southern Afghanistan through kickbacks, violence, family ties, and working both sides of the war — the Taliban and the West. He promised the U.S.-led military coalition that dealing with him would promote security, but it brought mixed results at best. | 07/12/11 19:54:09 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Army Ranger receives Medal of Honor

Army Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry could have sought cover four years ago when a grenade landed near him and two of his fellow soldiers, all of them caught in an Afghanistan compound full of insurgents. That's what every soldier is trained to do. But he didn't. Petry picked the grenade up and threw it just as it exploded. | 07/12/11 19:52:44 By - Lydia Mulvany

U.S. wants release of doctor who sought bin Laden DNA

The Obama administration is pressing Islamabad to release a doctor who was arrested for working for the CIA to help confirm that Osama bin Laden lived in Abbottabad, officials said, but the doctor's fate has become hostage to the bitter confrontation between Islamabad and Washington. | 07/12/11 17:46:47 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan President Karzai's half-brother assassinated

Ahmed Wali Karzai, one of the most powerful men in Afghanistan and the half-brother of President Hamid Karzai, was assassinated Tuesday in his own house in Kandahar, the family's home town. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the killing. | 07/12/11 06:32:36 By - Habib Zohori and Saeed Shah

McClatchy wins National Press Club award for Afghan series

McClatchy’s series on the woes of U.S. contracting in Afghanistan has won the National Press Club’s award for diplomatic coverage. The Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence will be awarded to McClatchy on Aug. 10 at the National Press Club’s annual dinner. | 07/11/11 18:54:22 By -

Pakistan holds doctor who tried to collect bin Laden DNA

Pakistani authorities have jailed a doctor who helped the CIA by creating an elaborate plot to get DNA samples of Osama bin Laden’s family before the al Qaida leader was killed in a special forces raid here. | 07/11/11 16:19:04 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistan defiant as U.S. cuts off $800 million in military aid

The Pakistan military declared Sunday that it doesn't need U.S. military aid, as the White House confirmed that Washington is stopping some $800 million in assistance to Pakistan's armed forces, further poisoning ties between the two anti-terror "allies." | 07/11/11 00:37:52 By - Saeed Shah

4 mine sweepers found dead; 3 NATO troops killed in Afghanistan

At least four of the 28 minesweepers who were abducted four days ago by unknown gunmen in western Afghanistan have been found dead, local officials said Sunday, as a wave of attacks across the country killed three NATO soldiers. The workers belonged to the United Nations-supported Demining Agency for Afghanistan, a local non-governmental organization based in Kabul and which operates all over the country. | 07/11/11 00:37:32 By - Hashim Shukoor

Drone strikes show Pakistan still cooperating with U.S.

The CIA still is launching drone strikes against al Qaida and allied extremists from a base in southwestern Pakistan, indicating that key facets of counterterrorism cooperation have survived the serious strains in U.S.-Pakistani relations since Osama bin Laden's killing, U.S. officials said. | 06/30/11 18:55:03 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Hotel attack won't stop security handover, Afghan officials say

Afghan officials vowed Wednesday that a terrorist attack on one of the capital's best-known hotels wouldn't disrupt plans for the country's police and military to assume responsibility for security next month in seven key areas, including Kabul. | 06/29/11 16:34:33 By - Hashim Shukoor

Army witness' credibility questioned in Afghan murder case

The attorney for a soldier and alleged member of a so-called Afghan kill team used a hearing to stage an all-out assault on the government's key witness in the case, saying Pvt. Jeremy Morlock changed his story to win the best plea deal from prosecutors. | 06/29/11 07:50:19 By - Christian Hill

Helicopters end Taliban siege of Kabul Intercontinental hotel

Taliban insurgents, some of them dressed in traditional Afghan tunics and playing loud religious music over their cell phones, took over the Kabul Intercontinental hotel for more than six hours overnight. When the siege was finally ended early Wednesday by NATO helicopters, at least 10 civilians were dead, as were all of the attackers. | 06/29/11 00:21:12 By - Hashim Shukoor

Obama defers to public on speed of Afghanistan exit

President Barack Obama announced plans Wednesday to pull 33,000 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan well before next year's election, signaling a rapid drawdown sure to please Americans weary of the nearly decade-long war and its costs. | 06/28/11 18:49:55 By - Steven Thomma, Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

Pakistan detained, then released, many after bin Laden raid

In the two months since a U.S. special forces raid killed Osama bin Laden in this town, Pakistani authorities have arrested more than 30 people who either were suspected of having ties to the terrorist leader or were thought to have assisted U.S. authorities in tracking him down. | 06/28/11 18:46:46 By - Saeed Shah

Death toll unknown from attack on luxury Afghan hotel

Suspected Taliban insurgents equipped with explosives-laden vests and guns attacked the Kabul Intercontinental hotel Tuesday night, police said. | 06/28/11 18:46:22 By - Hashim Shukoor

Military brass cite risks in Obama's Afghan drawdown

President Barack Obama rejected the U.S military's recommended timeline for pulling 33,000 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, opting for a faster, more "aggressive" drawdown of "greater risk," the top U.S. military officer and the senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Thursday. | 06/24/11 07:36:38 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

Photos with dead Afghans stirred pride, soldier testifies

Some of the first images in a set of notorious photographs showing soldiers posing with dead Afghans were taken with a sense pride that the Army was fighting and killing its enemy, a Stryker officer testified Thursday. Capt. Roman Ligsay said he felt a “sense of accomplishment” when he saw an Afghan who was killed by an American helicopter. | 06/23/11 20:53:23 By - Adam Ashton

Karzai welcomes Afghan drawdown plan as election woes re-emerge

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday endorsed President Barack Obama's plan to withdraw 33,000 American troops from Afghanistan by the middle of next year, though his principal political rival questioned the government's ability to follow through. | 06/23/11 16:16:38 By - Hashim Shukoor

Mullen: Afghan drawdown 'more aggressive' than he'd proposed

Two top U.S. military commanders told Congress on Thursday that President Barack Obama's proposal to draw down 33,000 troops from Afghanistan was riskier and more aggressive than he had proposed. | 06/23/11 12:13:47 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay

Afghans say they'll fill the gap as U.S. forces withdraw

The Afghan army said Wednesday that it supported any U.S. plans to withdraw troops from the country and that it was ready to fill the gap. "We welcome the decision of the U.S. people and the U.S. president regarding the withdrawal of a number of troops and support such a decision," said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry. | 06/22/11 17:22:50 By - Hashim Shukoor

Obama's troop announcement could have big repercussions

Nearly 10 years after a U.S.-led coalition attacked Afghanistan and 18 months after a surge of 33,000 fresh American troops there, war-weary U.S. voters probably will cheer President Barack Obama's speech Wednesday night announcing his timetable to start withdrawing troops from America's longest war. | 06/22/11 08:18:28 By - Steven Thomma and Jonathan S. Landay

Soldiers convicted in Afghan murders probe remain in the Army

Three soldiers convicted of crimes and ordered kicked out of the Army in connection with a yearlong investigation into alleged civilian murders in Afghanistan continue to wear the Army uniform and draw military pay. They are key witnesses against six other soldiers. | 06/21/11 07:11:31 By -

Obama's Afghan drawdown plan takes shape

President Barack Obama will unveil an Afghanistan force drawdown plan on Wednesday that is expected to call for the withdrawal of the 33,000 U.S. troops deployed in last year's surge by the end of 2012, U.S. defense officials said. | 06/20/11 21:04:24 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

2 killers in Afghan bank siege are hanged in Kabul

Two men convicted of killing more than 40 people in a February siege on a bank in the eastern city of Jalalabad were hanged in a prison Monday in rare executions ordered by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. | 06/20/11 15:25:45 By - Hashim Shukoor

Karzai confirms U.S.-Taliban talks as insurgents kill 9

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that the U.S. is holding direct talks with the Taliban, the first public confirmation of the secret effort to end the nearly decade-long war. Karzai's comments, made in a speech filled with criticism of the U.S., came hours before a suicide attack on a police station in central Kabul that killed at least nine people and injured 10 others just a few hundred yards from Karzai's heavily fortified palace. | 06/18/11 19:06:28 By - Hashim Shukoor and Jonathan S. Landay

Obama expected to unveil Afghan drawdown plan next week

President Barack Obama is expected to unveil his U.S. troop reduction plan for Afghanistan next week, buoyed by assessments by senior defense officials that the U.S. war strategy is headed in the right direction and has weakened the Taliban-led insurgency. | 06/17/11 19:53:14 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

Text of al Qaida's announcement that Zawahiri is its leader

This is the text of the al Qaida statement naming Ayman al Zawahiri as the successor to Osama bin Laden. It was translated from the Arabic by McClatchy special correspondent Mohannad Sabry. | 06/16/11 21:04:14 By -

Zawahiri's rise puts Pakistan in al Qaida crosshairs

Ayman al Zawahiri's succession to the leadership of al Qaida, announced over the Internet Thursday, carries particular dangers for Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country reeling from an Islamic insurgency, a faltering economy, endemic corruption and poor governance. | 06/16/11 19:14:20 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

Even hawkish Rep. Dicks seeks end to Afghan war

If you need proof that the tide on Capitol Hill has turned against the war in Afghanistan, Exhibit A is Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington state, the top-ranked House Democrat in charge of the Pentagon's budget. | 06/16/11 19:11:56 By - Rob Hotakainen

Ayman al-Zawahiri succeeds bin Laden as al Qaida's leader

Al Qaida moved Thursday to fill the leadership vacuum caused by the death of Osama bin Laden, announcing that his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has taken over. | 06/16/11 06:44:29 By - Saeed Shah

Arrests in Pakistan may include neighbor who lived behind bin Laden

U.S. and Pakistani officials acknowledged Wednesday that Pakistan has arrested several of its own citizens who helped the CIA spy on the house where Osama bin Laden lived. | 06/16/11 06:33:09 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan vice president unhurt in attack on police academy

Afghanistan's second vice president and the country's interior minister were uninjured Wednesday when Taliban insurgents fired a mortar at the opening ceremony of a vast new police training academy outside Kabul. | 06/16/11 06:32:05 By - Hashim Shukoor

Afghanistan-Pakistan peace commission meets

A joint Afghanistan-Pakistan peace commission met for the first time Saturday, an initiative to try to settle the near-decade-long insurgency in Afghanistan. But analysts are skeptical of results from the unwieldy body, and the process is further undermined by Washington's opaque position on negotiations. | 06/13/11 10:59:09 By - Saeed Shah

At least 21 killed in Afghanistan attacks

At least 21 people were killed in a series of attacks across Afghanistan on Saturday as a U.N. agency announced that May had been the deadliest month for Afghan civilians since 2007. | 06/13/11 10:58:47 By - Hashim Shukoor

Ex-top Pakistan spy doubts bin Laden hid years in Abbottabad

The man who took charge of Pakistan's intelligence agency after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks said Wednesday that he wasn't surprised that Osama bin Laden had been living in his country but that he doubted the al Qaida leader had been hiding out for five years in the compound where he died. | 06/10/11 07:20:12 By - Carol Rosenberg

Zawahiri praises bin Laden, but al Qaida still leaderless

Egyptian radical Ayman al Zawahiri on Wednesday issued his first statement since U.S. special forces killed al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. In a video, Zawahiri promised to carry on the al Qaida founder's war against the West. | 06/10/11 07:19:49 By - Carol Rosenberg

Angry Pakistani army says it doesn't want U.S. aid

Pakistan's army lashed out Thursday at its critics at home as well as in the United States in an angry statement that underscored just how deep a crisis the country's armed forces are suffering. | 06/09/11 19:24:32 By - Saeed Shah

As U.S. pullout nears, Taliban bombs undermine Afghan army

A six-week-old Taliban offensive that's struck some of the most peaceful parts of Afghanistan and killed police commanders and senior officials is undermining confidence in the Afghan army and police just as the Obama administration considers how quickly it should begin drawing down U.S. forces here. | 06/09/11 18:10:25 By - Hashim Shukoor

Pressure grows on Obama to rethink Afghan war policy

As he mulls how many U.S. troops to pull out of Afghanistan starting next month, President Barack Obama is coming under increasing pressure from Democratic lawmakers and a growing number of Republicans to re-examine his war strategy following Osama bin Laden's death. | 06/08/11 19:11:18 By - Jonathan S. Landay, Nancy A. Youssef and William Douglas

U.S. general in charge of Afghan training gives upbeat update

The commander of the NATO training mission in Afghanistan painted an optimistic picture Tuesday of the progress in training Afghan security forces, a crucial pillar of President Barack Obama's plans to begin withdrawing American forces from that country in July. | 06/07/11 18:39:47 By - Daniel Lippman

Pushed by voters, senators to debate U.S. role in Libya

Responding to growing concern among war-weary constituents about the purpose and cost of the U.S. mission in Libya, senators are poised to debate whether to send President Barack Obama a message that he needs to be more specific about his goals there. | 06/07/11 17:35:27 By - David Lightman and William Douglas

Gates urges Afghans to take more security responsibilities

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made an unannounced visit here Saturday and said that Afghan security forces must take more responsibilities for a successful transition from U.S.-led NATO forces starting this July. | 06/04/11 17:07:41 By - Hashim Shukoor

Top al Qaida figure Ilyas Kashmiri killed in drone strike

Ilyas Kashmiri was one of the most wanted militants in the world, carrying a $5 million American bounty on his head and charged in Chicago with planning an attack on a Danish newspaper. His was one of the names on a list U.S. officials delivered to Pakistan of top terrorists they wanted Pakistan's help in hunting down. | 06/04/11 12:19:47 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistan's bin Laden probe falters before it even starts

A month after U.S. Navy SEALs shot and killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's investigation into how the al Qaida leader hid out here undetected for at least five years has hit major stumbling blocks even before it has begun, leaving politicians and analysts to wonder whether Pakistan will ever get to the bottom of the affair. | 06/03/11 06:33:53 By - Saeed Shah

Journalist who feared Pakistani spy agency found dead

The tortured corpse of a prominent Pakistani journalist, who'd told friends he feared that the country's military intelligence agency would kill him, was found Tuesday, two days after he disappeared. Syed Saleem Shahzad, 40, often produced stories that embarrassed Pakistan's military and its Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. | 05/31/11 18:02:49 By - Saeed Shah

Karzai tells NATO to stop airstrikes in Afghanistan

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, angered by an airstrike that Afghan officials said killed 14 civilians over the weekend, demanded Tuesday that the U.S.-led coalition halt aerial strikes on Afghan houses and threatened to take unspecified actions if the coalition doesn't comply. | 05/31/11 16:02:36 By - Hashim Shukoor

Where the memories of bin Laden aren't all bad

Unlike the near universal hatred Osama bin Laden's name provokes in the West, the emotions in Afghanistan, where he once lived, are much more nuanced. Bin Laden's former neighbors are more likely to remember him as a hero of the war against the Soviet Union than a terrorist leader who killed more Muslims than Westerners in his long campaign against the infidel. | 05/29/11 17:48:40 By - Hashim Shukoor

Bomb kills key Afghan general, 2 advisers from NATO

A suicide bomber claimed the life of one of Afghanistan's most renown anti-Taliban commanders Saturday in a brazen strike that also killed a provincial police chief, two NATO soldiers and narrowly missed killing the German general who commands NATO troops in northern Afghanistan. The explosion, which also wounded the governor of Takhar province, took place at about 4 p.m. as the men were leaving what the governor's spokesman described as a high-level security meeting in the governor's compound. | 05/28/11 12:22:59 By - Hashim Shukoor

Clinton: Pakistanis concede bin Laden had support network

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that Pakistani officials had conceded that al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden must have had a support network in Pakistan to have remained undetected for at least five years in the city of Abbottabad, home to the country's premier military academy. | 05/27/11 17:16:34 By - Saeed Shah

Transcript: Hillary Clinton and Mike Mullen in Pakistan

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. | 05/27/11 15:40:19 By -

House Democrats clamor for U.S. to speed withdrawal from Afghanistan

Though the bid to force Obama to expedite the U.S. exit failed by a surprisingly close 215 to 204 vote — with mostly Democrats but also a sizeable number of Republicans voting for it — it was clear from the debate and vote that Obama's party is growing restless as the 2012 campaign approaches. | 05/26/11 15:03:51 By - David Lightman and William Douglas

House debate reflects U.S. impatience with Afghan War

As the House of Representatives engaged Wednesday in a tense debate over U.S. policy in Afghanistan, the first since the death of Osama bin Laden, some lawmakers in each party called for a quicker exit of U.S. troops, reflecting that the public mood toward American involvement there is growing impatient. | 05/25/11 18:48:19 By - David Lightman and William Douglas

Rumors swirl as Afghans say Taliban's Mullah Omar has moved

The Afghan Taliban on Monday denied reports that their leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, one of the most wanted men in Afghanistan, had been killed, as Afghan authorities said that he'd disappeared from Quetta, Pakistan, where he's thought to have spent the last 10 years hiding out. | 05/23/11 16:02:46 By - Hashim Shukoor

Taliban raid on naval base raises new questions about Pakistan's military

The ability of only six armed extremists to storm a Pakistani navy base in the city of Karachi and hold out for 16 hours raised new fears Monday about the security of the country’s military installations, including its nuclear weapons sites. It was an ignominious attack for Pakistan's armed forces, coming three weeks after the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden. | 05/23/11 10:38:51 By - Saeed Shah

U.S. returns Guantanamo detainee's remains to Afghanistan

The military has repatriated to Afghanistan the remains of a 47-year-old Guantánamo captive who apparently committed suicide with a bed sheet at a prison camp for compliant captives. | 05/23/11 06:54:15 By - Carol Rosenberg

At least four killed in attack on Pakistani naval base

A squad of heavily armed extremists stormed a Pakistani naval base late Sunday, leading to rocket fire and a gun battle, killing at least four naval personnel, reports and officials said. | 05/22/11 18:44:51 By - Saeed Shah

Suicide bombers storm government building in Afghanistan Khost province

At least four gunmen equipped with arms and explosive vests stormed a government building in the eastern province of Khost on Sunday morning, triggering several hours of clashes with security forces, local officials said. | 05/22/11 16:03:17 By - Hashim Shukoor

Suicide bomber kills 6 in Afghanistan hospital explosion

A midday explosion Saturday caused by a suicide bomber inside the Kabul's main military hospital killed six and injured dozens of others, officials said. Taliban militants claimed credit for the attack shortly after noon, saying two of their suicide bombers entered the hospital. | 05/21/11 13:16:53 By - Hashim Shukoor

U.S. officials escape bin Laden revenge bombing in Pakistan

Two American officials were saved by their armored vehicle Friday when it was hit by a bomb in the northwestern city of Peshawar, in an apparent revenge attack for the killing of Osama bin Laden. | 05/20/11 07:09:59 By - Saeed Shah

Taliban attack in eastern Afghanistan leaves 35 dead

Taliban insurgents attacked a construction company in Afghanistan's Paktia province Thursday, killing 35 and wounding at least 20 others. | 05/19/11 11:44:49 By - Hashim Shukoor

Day that claims 28 lives shows range of Afghan violence

At least 28 people died in Afghanistan on Wednesday in three separate explosions of violence that illustrate the wide array of mayhem that wracks this country and the anger that surrounds U.S. actions here. | 05/18/11 10:13:59 By - Hashim Shukoor

Pakistan says it's arrested an al Qaida figure

Pakistan said Tuesday that it had arrested an al Qaida operative in the southern city of Karachi, the first arrest of a terrorism suspect since an American special forces raid killed Osama bin Laden deep inside the country on May 2. | 05/18/11 06:35:42 By - Saeed Shah

U.S., Pakistan take steps to ease tensions after Osama bin Laden raid

After two weeks of rising acrimony, U.S. and Pakistani officials moved Monday to smooth over tensions triggered by the May 2 Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden. | 05/16/11 18:23:02 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

Pakistan's spy chief: U.S. continually lets us down

A double suicide bombing Friday against a paramilitary security force claimed at least 80 lives in north west Pakistan, an attack that extremists declared was revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden in the country. | 05/13/11 08:37:43 By - Saeed Shah

Even after bin Laden, U.S. can't walk away from Pakistan

If Pakistani officials helped hide Osama bin Laden, there are unlikely to be serious consequences because the government is too weak and the United States has bigger priorities, such as ending the Afghan war and helping to stabilize poor, terrorism-plagued Pakistan, which has the world's fastest-growing nuclear arsenal. | 05/11/11 21:08:07 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Saeed Shah

U.S. commander: Bin Laden's death doesn't end Afghan war

Osama bin Laden's death hasn't changed the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, and it must continue, the U.S. commander in charge of the country's east said Tuesday. | 05/10/11 19:01:11 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Obama calls for explanation of bin Laden's network in Pakistan

President Barack Obama, in an interview broadcast on Sunday, demanded to know what kind of "support network" Osama bin Laden had in Pakistan, adding to the pressure on Pakistan's government to explain the al Qaida chief's presence in the country. | 05/09/11 07:08:21 By - Saeed Shah

Suspected Taliban fighters launch attacks on Kandahar

Insurgents staged a major raid on the Afghan city of Kandahar on Saturday. | 05/09/11 06:39:37 By - Hashim Shukoor

Pentagon releases videos of bin Laden found at Pakistan home

The Pentagon has released videos of Osama bin Laden that are part of the intelligence it collected in the raid on Pakistan that killed him. | 05/09/11 06:39:13 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Fighting enters second day in Afghan city of Kandahar

Taliban militants equipped with explosives vests and guns fought for a second day on Sunday in the southern city of Kandahar, targeting government and military compounds from commercial buildings. | 05/09/11 06:33:44 By - Hashim Shukoor

Taliban: Reports of bin Laden's death greatly exaggerated

Afghanistan's Taliban, who sheltered Osama bin Laden when they governed the country prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Tuesday that it would be "premature" to comment on U.S. claims that the al Qaida leader had been killed during a raid on a compound in Pakistan. | 05/03/11 17:24:20 By - Hashim Shukoor

A world without bin Laden already a world long gone

Without him, there would likely be no Department of Homeland Security, no Patriot Act, no Quran-burning pastors. Had Osama bin Laden never been born, there would surely be fewer gold star mothers and fathers, less need for prosthetic limbs for young troops, an American public still largely ignorant to the Muslim concept of martyrdom. | 05/02/11 21:10:28 By - Scott Canon and Rick Montgomery

Pakistan, Afghanistan ties will change post-bin Laden

Osama bin Laden's death is likely to alter U.S. relations with Pakistan profoundly, and may open a door to negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to lawmakers in Congress and analysts of the war on terror. | 05/02/11 18:33:25 By - William Douglas and David Lightman

Afghans: Bin Laden raid shows Pakistan should be war's focus

Afghans used the death of Osama bin Laden to plead for the end of the war in their country, saying the killing of the al Qaida leader in Pakistan proves that Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is where the war needs to be fought. | 05/02/11 14:42:50 By - Hashim Shukoor

Bin Laden raid years in the making, minutes in execution

It took years for the U.S. military to track Osama bin Laden down, finding him not in a cave in the inaccessible tribal regions of Pakistan, but in a sumptuous luxury compound built just six years ago in the same city that is home to Pakistan's most prestigious military academy. The raid that killed him lasted just 40 minutes. | 05/02/11 03:08:42 By - Jonathan S. Landay

We got the bastard: Graham, Biden share news of bin Laden's death

Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Lindsey Graham, old-style politicians who wear their emotions on their sleeves, traveled the world together when Biden served in the Senate. Graham guessed why Biden might be calling him at home on a Sunday night. | 05/02/11 01:37:21 By - James Rosen

Bin Laden's violent legacy stretches back decades

Osama bin Laden earned his combat spurs by fighting with Afghanistan's ragtag Mujahadeen army to drive occupying Soviet troops out of their homeland in the 1980s. Bin Laden, though, had a far bigger vision, one that would lead him to be reviled by Western civilization. | 05/02/11 01:08:17 By - Greg Gordon

Transcript: Remarks by President Obama on Osama bin Laden

Tonight, President Obama addressed the Nation to announce that the United States has killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaida. | 05/02/11 00:39:20 By -

Osama bin Laden: Born into privilege, died the face of evil

The tall, lean, rich man's son could have spent his life lounging about Saudi Arabia in luxury. Instead, Osama bin Laden chose to kill. As a young man, he shot at Soviet invaders in Afghanistan. In middle age, he turned his wrath and far-reaching resources against the United States — the superpower he saw as spoiler of his homeland's sacred cities. By the time of his death, his was the face of terrorism. | 05/02/11 00:06:39 By - Rick Montgomery and Scott Canon

President Obama: U.S. kills Osama bin Laden in Pakistan

Osama Bin Laden is dead. President Barack Obama made the dramatic late-night announcement Sunday from the East Room of the White House, ending the long, elusive international manhunt for the leader of the al Qaida terror organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "Justice has been done," the president said in a 10-minute address shortly before midnight. | 05/01/11 22:47:13 By - Margaret Talev and Jonathan S. Landay

Suicide bomber, 12, kills 4 in southeastern Afghanistan

A 12-year-old suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest detonated himself Sunday in a market in southeastern Afghanistan's Paktika province, killing four people, including a local council chief, provincial government officials said. | 05/01/11 15:18:32 By - Hashim Shukoor

Taliban to launch offensive Sunday against U.S. forces

The Taliban on Sunday will begin a spring offensive against the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, a statement posted on the insurgent group's website said. Violence has increased across Afghanistan as the U.S.-led NATO forces are preparing to transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces starting this summer. | 04/30/11 17:28:03 By - Hashim Shukoor

Taliban strike Pakistani security forces, killing 5

Taliban militants in Pakistan extended their campaign of violence against the country’s security forces Thursday, targeting the navy for the third time this week with a bombing that killed five in the southern city of Karachi. | 04/28/11 09:04:13 By - Saeed Shah

In deadliest attack in years, Afghan pilot kills 9 U.S. trainers

An Afghan military pilot opened fire Wednesday on U.S.-led NATO troops at the airport here, killing eight soldiers and a civilian contractor, in the deadliest single attack on international forces in years. | 04/27/11 07:54:08 By - Hashim Shukoor

Airstrike kills top al Qaida leader in Afghanistan, NATO says

U.S.-led NATO forces killed a top al Qaida member, Abu Hafs al Najdi, also known as Abdul Ghani, in an airstrike April 13 in the eastern province of Kunar, according to a statement the International Security Assistance Force issued Tuesday. | 04/26/11 07:05:03 By - Hashim Shukoor

Manhunt on for hundreds of Taliban sprung from Afghan jail

U.S.-backed Afghan forces launched a massive manhunt Monday for hundreds of inmates, most of them Taliban fighters, who fled down a tunnel burrowed under the walls of a maximum security prison. | 04/25/11 08:59:25 By - Hashim Shukoor

Pakistan-U.S. feud boils over CIA drone strikes

Even as it publicly demands an end to U.S. drone attacks on militants in its tribal area, Pakistan is allowing the CIA to launch the missile-firing robot aircraft from an airbase in its province of Baluchistan, U.S. officials said Friday. | 04/22/11 19:52:57 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Bomb kills 5 border police in southern Afghanistan

At least five border policemen were killed and one wounded when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in the southern province of Kandahar, officials said Friday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Taliban militants mostly have been blamed — or take credit — for other recent attacks. | 04/22/11 12:59:32 By - Hashim Shukoor

Bomb kills 5 border police in southern Afghanistan

At least five border policemen were killed and one wounded when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in the southern province of Kandahar, officials said Friday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Taliban militants mostly have been blamed — or take credit — for other recent attacks. | 04/22/11 12:44:39 By - Hashim Shukoor

Pakistan frees 5 accused in court-ordered gang rape

Nine years after being gang-raped on the orders of a village council, Mukhtar Mai's struggle for justice ended Thursday when Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered five of the six accused to be freed. | 04/21/11 16:30:41 By - Saeed Shah

Mullen accuses Pakistan of keeping terrorist links

The top uniformed American military official used an interview on Pakistani television Wednesday to accuse the country's spy agency of supporting a leading Afghan insurgent group that's killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan. | 04/20/11 17:36:18 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

Taliban sympathizer kills 2 at Afghan defense ministry

For the second time in three days, a Taliban suicide bomber in an Afghan army uniform on Monday penetrated a supposedly secure Afghan military facility, the latest evidence that military and government supporters are at risk even inside the most heavily guarded locations. | 04/18/11 22:40:07 By - Hashim Shukoor

8 soldiers die Saturday in latest Taliban suicide attacks

Eight soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition were killed Saturday in Taliban bombings, including a suicide attack at a military base in the eastern province of Laghman, the single deadliest attack on the alliance in months. | 04/16/11 08:23:35 By - Hashim Shukoor

Son's death in Quran burning protest haunts Afghan family

Habibullah remembers the last time he saw his 18-year-old son. It was a Friday morning, the first day of April, and his son, a high school student, wanted to go to the city to buy some clothes and a cellphone. | 04/15/11 15:52:46 By - Hashim Shukoor

Suicide attacks target Afghan police, killing 3

Another suspected Taliban suicide attacker struck in Afghanistan's eastern provinces Thursday, this time claiming the lives of three police officers at a training center that U.S. and Afghan officials set up in hopes of providing police support to isolated villages. | 04/14/11 10:44:58 By - Hashim Shukoor

Karzai blasts 'foreign agents' for Afghan suicide attack

Afghan President Hamid Karzai offered a scarcely veiled condemnation of Pakistan for a suicide bombing that killed at least 10 government-allied tribal leaders and wounded seven. No group claimed the attack, which struck the leaders as they emerged from a meeting on local issues. | 04/13/11 07:48:20 By - Hashim Shukoor

Misconduct ignored in Afghan Stryker killings

Lt. Roman Ligsay already was feeling pressure to keep a close eye on his platoon in southern Afghanistan. Then a superior officer questioned why Ligsay’s soldiers had shot and killed a seemingly unarmed Afghan walking toward them along a highway. | 04/11/11 15:29:24 By - Adam Ashton

U.S. troops repel Taliban attack at eastern Afghan airport

An insurgent attack at the airport in the eastern city of Jalalabad late Tuesday left at least seven militants dead in the latest sign that the Taliban are stepping up assaults as the weather warms. The attack came shortly before midnight as the provincial governor met with other officials at the airport to discuss security. U.S. troops are based at the airport. | 04/06/11 09:19:54 By - Hashim Shukoor

Former Afghan lawmaker Joya says U.S. soldiers disregard lives

A former Afghan lawmaker told an audience of Tacoma, Washington, peace activists Tuesday that photos of Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldiers grinning over the corpse of a boy they allegedly murdered revealed a disregard for civilian lives among U.S. forces fighting in her country. | 04/06/11 07:41:20 By - Adam Ashton

California soldier honored for saving Afghan girl's life

Pvt. Marcus Montez's first patrol during his inaugural tour as a combat medic in Afghanistan wasn't your typical first day. While on foot patrol through Kandahar City, his unit heard an Afghan woman wailing in distress and rushed to investigate. His four-person unit found a woman clutching an apparently lifeless toddler. Montez, of Sacramento, stepped in and began performing CPR on the little girl. For this, Montez was awarded the Soldier's Medal, the highest award a soldier can receive for actions unrelated to combat. | 04/06/11 06:45:30 By - Ed Fletcher

White House: Pakistan is failing to defeat militants

In a grim assessment of the war on terror inside Pakistan, the Obama administration said Tuesday that Pakistan lacks a "clear path toward defeating" Islamic insurgents in the country's tribal region despite committing tens of thousands of troops to the effort. | 04/05/11 20:58:29 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Afghans complain about NATO-led raid that killed 6

A night raid by NATO-led forces killed six civilians in the relatively peaceful northern Afghan province of Sar-e-Pul, local officials said Tuesday, but a statement from the U.S.-led coalition said the dead were Taliban insurgents armed with AK-47 assault rifles. | 04/05/11 16:13:58 By - Hashim Shukoor

Nine killed in Afghan protest over Quran burning

A second day of deadly violence over the burning of a Quran by a Florida pastor left at least nine people dead and more than 80 injured Saturday in Afghanistan. | 04/04/11 06:22:31 By - Hashim Shukoor

Truck bomb kills 20, injures dozens in eastern Afghanistan

A truck filled with explosives targeted a road construction compound in Afghanistan's eastern province of Paktika, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens more Sunday, according to a statement Monday by the Afghan Interior Mministry. | 03/28/11 06:35:47 By - Hashim Shukoor

Taliban insurgents abduct police recruits in eastern Afghanistan

Taliban militants have abducted about 50 young men who were planning to join the national police in the eastern province of Kunar, security officials said Sunday. | 03/27/11 18:36:12 By - Hashim Shukoor

Stryker soldier Morlock gets 24-year sentence for Afghan killings

Spc. Jeremy Morlock said Wednesday he lost his “moral compass” when he joined schemes to murder three Afghan civilians last year during a deployment with a Joint Base Lewis-McChord Stryker brigade. | 03/24/11 07:04:58 By - Adam Ashton

Stryker soldier, Morlock, pleads guilty to Afghan murders

Spc. Jeremy Morlock pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to three counts of murdering unarmed Afghans and other wrongdoing in an important juncture in a U.S. Army war-crimes investigation. | 03/23/11 15:05:05 By - Hal Bernton

Start of Afghan 'fighting season' will test U.S. strategy

After the most violent winter since U.S. soldiers arrived in Afghanistan, the spring thaw has come, ushering in a new "fighting season" in which, intelligence suggests, the Taliban leadership believes they will storm back into their former strongholds in the south and reverse the much-trumpeted gains of U.S.-led coalition forces. | 03/23/11 07:43:07 By - Saeed Shah

Karzai lays out plan for Afghan security handover

The Afghan government announced Tuesday that U.S.-led international forces will hand over security responsibility in three provinces to Afghan forces beginning this summer. | 03/22/11 19:11:31 By - Hashim Shukoor

Rep. Walter Jones pushes for Afghanistan exit

Again last Saturday, U.S. Rep. Walter Jones slipped into his office for the penance he has served nearly each weekend since 2005. Again on Thursday, the House of Representatives turned its attention to the conflict in Afghanistan, and whether it is the time for U.S. troops to leave. | 03/18/11 06:38:53 By - Barbara Barrett

Pakistan condemns U.S. over drone strike that killed 36

Just one day after a CIA contractor was absolved by a Pakistani court of a double murder charge, Pakistan and U.S. relations were plunged into a new crisis Thursday over a CIA-directed drone missile strike that Pakistan said killed at least 36 civilians. | 03/17/11 17:56:30 By - Saeed Shah

Lawyer: 'Blood money' bought CIA contractor's freedom

A murder case against an American CIA contractor that had threatened already troubled U.S.-Pakistani relations came to an abrupt end Wednesday after $1.4 million in "blood money" was paid to the families of the two men he was accused of killing. | 03/16/11 09:12:04 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

Suicide attacker targets recruiting center in Kunduz province

A suicide attacker blew himself up in an army recruiting center in the northern Afghanistan province of Kunduz, killing at least 30 and injured 40 others on Monday officials said. | 03/14/11 08:53:35 By - Hashim Shukoor

Coalition raid kills Afghan President Karzai's cousin

A cousin of President Hamid Karzai was killed Thursday in southern Afghanistan during a raid by coalition forces, just after the president had said civilian casualties from the war were damaging relations with the United States. | 03/10/11 17:09:41 By - Saeed Shah

U.N.: U.S.-led forces killed fewer Afghan civilians last year

The number of civilians killed by U.S.-led forces and their Afghan allies dropped 26 percent last year, the United Nations reported Wednesday. | 03/09/11 15:46:51 By - Saeed Shah

Afghans rely heavily on foreign advisers as transition looms

Nearly 300 foreign advisers, most of them Americans, work at Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, and hundreds more work in other government departments, a reliance on foreign expertise that raises doubts about the viability of the West's exit strategy. | 03/08/11 17:27:02 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan government asks U.N. to ease limits on 5 ex-Taliban

The Afghan government has asked the United Nations to remove the names of five former senior Taliban members from its terrorist blacklist, including the man who ran the extremist regime's feared religious police, McClatchy has learned. | 03/07/11 17:13:14 By - Saeed Shah

Relations worsen as Karzai rejects U.S. apology over deaths of 9 Afghan boys

Afghan president Hamid Karzai Sunday rebuffed an apology by the American general running the military campaign in his country for the recent deaths of nine boys in a helicopter attack, sending already tense relations with Washington to a new low. | 03/06/11 16:42:48 By - Saeed Shah

5th soldier convicted in Afghan Stryker trials

The Army won its fifth conviction Wednesday in its Afghanistan war crimes investigation at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, but defense attorneys launched an aggressive offensive against key prosecution witnesses that likely will be repeated as the case unfolds. | 03/03/11 12:56:20 By - Adam Ashton

Obama statement on assassination of Pakistan minister

I am deeply saddened by the assassination of Pakistan's Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti today in Islamabad, and condemn in the strongest possible terms this horrific act of violence. We offer our profound condolences to his family, loved ones and all who knew and worked with him. | 03/02/11 18:00:58 By -

U.S.-led coalition admits it killed 9 Afghan boys in error

Troops in attack helicopters that belong to the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan mistakenly killed nine boys Tuesday with machine-gun and rocket fire as they collected firewood, thinking that the children were Taliban insurgents, the international forces acknowledged Wednesday. | 03/02/11 16:54:14 By - Hashim Shukoor

Another top Pakistan politician slain over blasphemy law

only Christian in Pakistan's cabinet was assassinated Wednesday by militants linked to al Qaida after he called for the country's controversial laws on blasphemy to be amended. | 03/02/11 05:49:43 By - Saeed Shah

New militia brings security, and worries, to Marjah, Afghanistan

Namatullah, a 19-year-old volunteer for a new armed "neighborhood watch" militia now patrolling alongside Marines in northeast Marjah, simply drew his finger across his throat when asked why he and other residents hadn't banded together to protect their districts until the arrival of the U.S. soldiers. | 03/01/11 17:17:19 By - Saeed Shah

Suicide bomber kills three at Afghan sporting event

A suicide bomber detonated Saturday in a crowd in northern Afghanistan gathered for a traditional sporting event, killing three and injuring 40. | 02/27/11 20:29:39 By - Hashim Shukoor

Karzai succeeds in getting weak parliament speaker elected

President Hamid Karzai managed Sunday to avoid the election of a strong opposition politician to the post of speaker of Afghanistan's parliament, after his supporters and critics had wrangled over the position for a month. | 02/27/11 20:28:26 By - Saeed Shah

Stryker soldier discharged, sentenced for assault on comrade

A Stryker soldier from Montesano was discharged from the Army and sentenced to 60 days of hard labor Wednesday after he was convicted of assaulting a comrade who blew the whistle on drug use in their platoon during a deployment to Afghanistan last year. | 02/24/11 12:05:08 By - Adam Ashton

Taliban bomber kills dozens at Afghan government office

A suicide attacker blew himself up at a government office Monday in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 32 and wounding 31 people, mostly those in line to get identity cards, local officials said. | 02/21/11 18:45:15 By - Hashim Shukoor

Taliban claims attack on Afghan bank that kills 9, injures 70

The attack was aimed at police officers who were collecting their salaries from a branch of Kabul Bank in Jalalabad, the biggest city in the eastern section of the country and capital of Nangahar province, which borders Pakistan. | 02/19/11 16:00:43 By - Hashim Shukoor

Tailor shops displace opium bazaar in Afghan town

Nothing better illustrates the transformation of this southern Afghan town than the central Koru Chareh market, where an entire street functioned as a drug bazaar when the Taliban were in control. Today tailors have set up business at one end, and legitimate enterprises have started filling the empty shops. | 02/18/11 17:49:24 By - Saeed Shah

Taliban marginalized in former stronghold, U.S. general says

The Taliban insurgents in the key Afghan province of Helmand have been driven out of the towns and marginalized, while U.S. forces are making "very steady progress" even in the most violent areas of the province, said the Marine Corps general who's in charge of the region. | 02/18/11 17:42:32 By - Saeed Shah

U.S. gave firm low rating for Afghan work — and more business

A U.S. contractor who's continued to receive government contracts despite criticism of its work in Afghanistan got low ratings for its performance on two more high-profile projects in the war-torn country than had been disclosed previously. McClatchy has learned that the U.S. government criticized Black & Veatch for poor oversight and delays on a Kabul power plant project and for a study of the viability of developing a natural gas field in the Sheberghan region in northern Afghanistan. | 02/14/11 09:30:00 By - Marisa Taylor

Suicide attack at Kabul shopping mall kills 2 guards

A suicide attacker blew himself up at the entrance of a shopping mall Monday in downtown Kabul, killing two guards and injuring two others, according to security officials. | 02/14/11 07:53:28 By - Hashim Shukoor

Military deploys acupuncture to treat soldiers' concussions

The U.S. military is applying an ancient Chinese healing technique to the top modern battlefield injury for American soldiers, with results that doctors here say are "off the charts." | 02/07/11 17:09:48 By - Saeed Shah

Bombing of supermarket ends peaceful period in Kabul

A bomb blast Friday at a Kabul supermarket that's popular with foreigners killed at least eight people, including three foreign nationals, police and witnesses said. The attack shattered a period of calm in the Afghan capital over the last few months. | 01/28/11 07:41:11 By - Hashim Shukoor and Saeed Shah

Karzai's pick for parliament speaker accused of atrocities

An Afghan warlord who's accused of gross human rights violations and was once close to Osama bin Laden has received the backing of President Hamid Karzai for the important post of speaker of the new parliament, which was inaugurated Wednesday. | 01/26/11 18:59:39 By - Saeed Shah

Watchdog faults Obama's Afghan security strategy

The Obama administration's $11.4 billion plan to bolster Afghanistan's security forces is "at risk" because of poor planning, a government watchdog agency concluded in a report released Wednesday. | 01/26/11 15:19:16 By - Marisa Taylor

Federal inquiry under way of no-bid contract in Afghanistan

The government watchdog of U.S. contracting in Afghanistan is scrutinizing a sole-source contract that was awarded to a firm even though it was widely criticized for its construction of a power plant project in Kabul. | 01/24/11 18:22:24 By - Marisa Taylor

Karzai yields on opening parliament, but still fights for court

Afghan President Hamid Karzai bowed Monday to domestic and international pressure to convene parliament, but he continued his battle with lawmakers over a special court he'd sought to investigate voting fraud allegations against members of parliament. | 01/24/11 15:51:22 By - Saeed Shah

U.N. envoy scrambles to save deal over Afghanistan's parliament

The United Nations representative in Afghanistan held an unscheduled meeting with Afghanistan lawmakers holed up at an upscale hotel here Sunday in an effort to rescue a deal that Western diplomats say is critical to instilling democracy in this war torn country. Legislators on Saturday thought they had a deal with Karzai that would allow the new parliament to begin work on Wednesday. | 01/23/11 17:01:33 By - Saeed Shah

Combat kills another female soldier in Afghanistan

Pfc. Renee Sinkler, 23, of Chadbourn, N.C., was the second woman soldier to die in combat since the 109th Transportation Co., known as the "Rough Riders" was deployed to Afghanistan in July. A gunner, she was in the exposed turret of an armored MRAP vehicle when it was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, the Army said. | 01/22/11 17:06:40 By - Richard Mauer

Kabul showdown: Afghan lawmakers threaten to defy Karzai

President Hamid Karzai will meet with Afghan lawmakers Saturday in a last-ditch attempt to resolve their differences over a disputed election and avert a clash that could spiral into constitutional chaos. Many of those elected in last year's parliamentary elections have vowed to inaugurate the new parliament on Sunday in defiance of Karzai's order to delay the opening by another month. | 01/21/11 17:11:44 By - Saeed Shah

Karzai, Afghan parliament set for clash in constitutional crisis

President Hamid Karzai and Afghan lawmakers appear headed for a major clash after Karzai postponed the inauguration of the new parliament and politicians elected in the controversial vote said they'd start their work unilaterally. | 01/20/11 15:13:30 By - Saeed Shah

Key evidence in Stryker war crimes case remains secret

A few key documents and images remain under wraps as legal proceedings unfold for the soldiers in the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division accused of murdering three civilians last year for fun. Defense attorneys say the hidden files would help clear their clients. | 01/16/11 11:21:58 By - Adam Ashton

Citing traditional values, Afghans censor article on artist

Afghan government censors have ordered Kabul's largest English-language magazine to excise an article on an Afghan-American artist whose works they view as an offense to the nation's traditional values. | 01/15/11 10:51:24 By - Dion Nissenbaum

U.S. keeps funneling money to troubled Afghan projects

McClatchy found that U.S. government funding for at least 15 large-scale programs and projects grew from just over $1 billion to nearly $3 billion despite the government's questions about their effectiveness or cost. Welcome to Afghan aid, American-style. | 01/12/11 17:12:58 By - Marisa Taylor and Dion Nissenbaum

U.S. watchdog for Afghanistan contracting resigns

The embattled top watchdog of U.S. contracting in Afghanistan announced Monday that he's resigning days after vowing to resist congressional demands to step down. Four senators demanded the resignation in a letter to President Barack Obama late last year, saying Arnold Fields has done a poor job of scrutinizing how $56 billion in reconstruction money is being spent in Afghanistan. | 01/10/11 18:02:56 By - Marisa Taylor

Pakistan government holds together, but problems widen

Pakistan's shaky government was thrown a lifeline Friday when it regained its parliamentary majority by enticing back a political party that had previously quit the ruling coalition. Nonetheless, the deal, which was brokered around rescinding a recent increase in gasoline prices, further damages state finances for a nation already on the verge of bankruptcy. | 01/07/11 15:47:52 By - Saeed Shah

Stryker soldier's charges of murdering Afghan civilians should be dropped, investigator says

An investigating officer has recommended that the Army drop most of its case against one of the five Stryker soldiers accused of murdering civilians in southern Afghanistan last year. Spc. Michael Wagnon, 30, has maintained his innocence since he was confined at Joint Base Lewis-McChord amid accusations that he was part of a “kill team” in the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division that murdered civilians for sport. | 01/07/11 12:11:16 By - Adam Ashton

Military bans 2 U.S. firms from Afghan contracting

Nearly a year after two American construction companies abruptly shuttered their operations in Afghanistan and left the country allegedly owing their Afghan partners more than $2 million, the U.S. military announced Wednesday that it's temporarily blacklisting the firms. | 01/05/11 16:51:22 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Stryker soldier pleads guilty to misconduct in Afghanistan

A Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier this morning pleaded guilty to five charges of misconduct, giving the Army its second conviction in its investigation into war crimes committed by Stryker soldiers on a recent deployment to Afghanistan. Spc. Emmitt Quintal is one of 12 soldiers from the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division accused of wrongdoing at Forward Operating Base Ramrod. Five are accused of murdering Afghan civilians and are awaiting trials at Lewis-McChord. | 01/05/11 14:59:44 By - Adam Ashton

Stung by Senate criticism, auditor of Afghan spending sacks aides

The top auditor of U.S. contracting in Afghanistan announced Tuesday that he had fired two of his deputies in a shake-up aimed at improving his investigations of waste and corruption. | 01/04/11 18:13:28 By - Marisa Taylor

Pakistan provincial governor assassinated by own guard

A senior Pakistani official was assassinated Tuesday in the middle of Islamabad by one of his own guards, apparently to protest the official's call for reform in the country's harsh laws against blasphemy. | 01/04/11 11:07:02 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

U.S. Marines report peace deal with tribe in Afghan hot spot

The top U.S. Marine commander in southern Afghanistan said Monday that an influential Afghan tribe had agreed to put a stop to Taliban attacks in a highly contested part of Helmand province sometimes called "Afghanistan's Fallujah." | 01/03/11 17:53:20 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

War crimes trial against Stryker soldiers has flaws

In hearings this fall, Army prosecutors, armed with sworn statements about plots to kill innocent civilians, have laid out their cases against soldiers accused of murder, conspiracy and other wrongdoing while serving in Afghanistan. But the hearings inside an aging brick building at Joint Base Lewis-McChord also have brought out some vulnerabilities in the government's case. | 12/29/10 11:18:36 By - Hal Bernton

Aid groups in Afghanistan question U.S. claim of Taliban setbacks

Citing evidence that Taliban insurgents have expanded their reach across Afghanistan, aid groups and security analysts in the country are challenging as misleading the Obama administration's recent claim that insurgents now control less territory than they did a year ago. | 12/28/10 18:03:30 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Charge that soldier killed Afghan civilians takes toll on his family

While his family plods through the holidays, Pfc. Andrew Holmes sits in a detention block on a Washington state Army base, one of five soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord charged in the deaths of three civilians in Kandahar province this year. His parents, sisters, brother and new baby niece are waiting at home as complicated legal wrangling plays out to determine whether he’ll face a court martial. | 12/26/10 22:08:07 By - Kathleen Kreller

NATO challenged over Kabul raid that killed two guards

The NATO military team that targeted a Kabul office complex on Christmas Eve thought they were thwarting a holiday season plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy. But the pre-dawn raid that left two security guards dead found no explosives, no plot and no evidence. Instead, the operation brought the issue of night raids directly into the Afghan capital. | 12/26/10 17:27:08 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

Suicide bomber in Pakistan kills at least 42 at food center

The attack in the town of Khar, the administrative center of the Bajaur tribal area, came amid ongoing fighting between Pakistan security forces and insurgents in the region bordering Afghanistan. A major clash in the neighboring Mohmand tribal area about 24 hours earlier had left 11 troops and about two dozen militants dead. | 12/25/10 21:30:28 By - Zulfiqar Ali and Laura King

Previous | Next

Recent Homepage Headlines

loading...

rss

MORE WORLD NEWS

From the McClatchy-Tribune News Service

» More coverage

SPECIAL REPORT: AFGHAN CONTRACTS

unfinished police station

The U.S. is spending billions of dollars to build facilities for Afghanistan's expanding national police and new garrisons for its army. The program, like much of the wider Afghan reconstruction effort, is faltering.

Stay Connected

Sign up for email newsletters RSS
Follow us on your iPhone Follow us on your Android device
Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us using Google Currents