Afghanistan-Pakistan

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

Al Qaida-allied Afghan fighters seek new Pakistan haven

The Haqqani network, an extremist group close to Al Qaida that has mounted devastating attacks in Afghanistan, is attempting to move into a new safe haven in Pakistan's tribal region in hopes of escaping U.S. drone attacks and the possibility of a Pakistani military offensive. So far, local tribes have refused to let them. | 12/24/10 16:12:13 By - Saeed Shah

Air Force officials overturn Osprey crash findings

Senior Air Force generals overturned the findings of their own investigation team and ruled that the fatal crash of a CV-22 Osprey in Afghanistan in April was largely due to flight crew mistakes and not a mechanical problem. | 12/17/10 07:31:55 By - Bob Cox

Afghanistan progress report warns of continued al Qaida threat

President Barack Obama and his aides released a strategy assessment of the war in Afghanistan on Thursday that asserts U.S. troops are making gains but acknowledges serious threats to the effort and lays out a timeline that promises several more years of U.S. involvement. | 12/16/10 19:14:22 By - Nancy A. Youssef, Warren P. Strobel and Margaret Talev

Afghanistan report finds progress 'fragile,' offers few details

The long anticipated Obama administration assessment of its strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan found that progress in the region so far is fragile and could easily unravel. A five-page unclassified summary of the full report released late Wednesday was noticeably lacking in detail, with no hard facts and no specifics on withdrawal of U.S. troops. | 12/16/10 06:01:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Army striking deals for testimony against Stryker squad leader

The Army's case against a Stryker squad leader who allegedly plotted to kill civilians in Afghanistan is shaping up with deals that require some of his former platoon mates to testify against him. | 12/12/10 10:42:25 By - Adam Ashton

Afghan official calls for election to be tossed out

Afghanistan's deputy attorney general on Saturday urged the country's highest court to throw out the contested results of recent legislative elections, a move that could hobble the new parliament and increase tensions between President Hamid Karzai and his international allies, who've warned him not to try to overturn the resuls of the elections. | 12/11/10 15:14:51 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Pakistanis protest civilian deaths in U.S. drone attacks

Victims of U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan took to the streets for the first time here Friday, as a new report claims that there are significant numbers of civilian casualties from the strikes and a lawsuit seeks hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from the CIA for those mistakenly injured or killed. | 12/10/10 17:19:41 By - Saeed Shah

Obama makes surprise visit to Afghanistan

President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan late Friday night amid renewed concerns about his administration’s plans to stabilize the country and bring American troops home. | 12/03/10 12:08:26 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Margaret Talev

Pakistanis: WikiLeaks proves leaders are U.S. puppets

A deluge of U.S. diplomatic cables has tarnished the reputation of Pakistan's political and military leadership with the country's public, adding to anti-American sentiments in Pakistan, analysts and politicians said Thursday. | 12/03/10 07:54:09 By - Saeed Shah

Court thwarts pardon of Pakistani facing death in blasphemy case

A surprise court intervention Monday in Pakistan could delay for years, or even scuttle, the chances of a presidential pardon for a Christian woman who's been condemned to death for blasphemy, lawyers and activists said. | 11/29/10 17:31:36 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan in border police uniform kills 6 U.S. soldiers

A man dressed in an Afghan Border Police uniform turned his weapon on American troops in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, killing six soldiers before being killed in a gun battle, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said. | 11/29/10 09:33:37 By - Warren P. Strobel and Hashim Shukoor

Witness in Afghan civilian killings trial says slain man was Taliban scout

A member of a Joint Base Lewis-McChord infantry platoon voiced doubts in a military courtroom Tuesday that the shooting of an Afghan man could have been a premeditated murder staged to look like a combat death, as the Army alleges. | 11/24/10 07:42:23 By - Mike Archbold

Stryker Afghan war crimes probe now looking at officers' role

A brigadier general has been assigned to investigate whether officers should have known sooner about the alleged murders of Afghan civilians by members of the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, and whether the officers create a climate where such crimes would occur. | 11/22/10 19:58:44 By - Adam Ashton

Army faces growing steroid use problem

Just weeks before his battalion of some 700 soldiers departed for Afghanistan in summer 2009, Lt. Col. Burton Shields had a disconcerting visit from an Army investigator. The agent said several soldiers under Shields' command at Joint Base Lewis-McChord had admitted to illegal use of steroids. One of the suspected users was a battalion captain. | 11/22/10 17:09:16 By - Hal Bernton

Unresolved Afghan election could undercut U.S. efforts

Ghazni province had half an election in September. Ethnic Pashtuns stayed home, thanks to intimidation by the Taliban insurgency. A rival group, the Hazara, went to the polls in droves, seeking political power as an antidote to their historical repression. | 11/22/10 16:32:40 By - Warren P. Strobel and Habib Zohori

Pakistani facing death in blasphemy case may be freed

Hopes were raised Monday that a Pakistani Christian woman, convicted of blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad this month and sentenced to death, will be pardoned soon, after government officials said they expected her to be freed. | 11/22/10 15:38:00 By - Saeed Shah

Whistleblower details bribes, fraud in Afghanistan

A corporate whistleblower whose evidence of fraud led to one of the largest fines ever against a war-zone contractor said that he was ordered to facilitate bribes, keep information from government auditors and inflate overhead rates. Former Louis Berger Group employee Harold Salomon outlined what he saw of the contractor's business practices in his first interview since the case was settled earlier this month. | 11/21/10 22:27:01 By - Warren P. Strobel

U.S. could be in Afghanistan beyond 2015, NATO official says

A top NATO official said Wednesday that a complete handover of security to Afghan forces by 2014 was "realistic, but not guaranteed," and the transition could last into 2015 "or beyond." | 11/17/10 18:39:58 By - Warren P. Strobel

In 'safe' Afghan province, few want NATO forces to depart

Poverty is endemic in Bamiyan and the infrastructure barely past medieval, but this peaceful province is about as good as it gets in Afghanistan today. | 11/17/10 17:53:27 By - Warren P. Strobel

Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, on edge of gang-led civil war

At Karachi's giant Shershah automobile parts market, customers are scarce nowadays, fearing more violence of the sort that left 13 dead last month. The gunmen arrived by motorbike and rampaged through the narrow alleys of the bazaar, executing shopkeepers. | 11/17/10 16:41:22 By - Saeed Shah

NATO: Afghan turnover could last into 2015 'or beyond'

A top NATO official said Wednesday that a complete handover of security to Afghan forces by 2014 was "realistic, but not guaranteed," and the transition could last into 2015 "or beyond." | 11/17/10 14:17:28 By - Warren P. Strobel

Under new plan, U.S. troops will stay in Afghanistan till 2014

The White House on Tuesday unveiled a plan for Afghanistan that foresees U.S. troops remaining there until at least the end of 2014, more than three years past when President Barack Obama promised he'd begin withdrawing troops from the war-torn country. | 11/16/10 19:44:18 By - Nancy A. Youssef

U.S. hires firms with questionable pasts for Afghan jobs

McClatchy found nearly $4.5 billion in contracts that were awarded to companies even though they violated laws or had high-profile disputes over previous projects. Such legal or financial troubles could indicate that a company isn't prepared to finish a project or is prone to wasting taxpayer money. | 11/14/10 00:01:00 By - Marisa Taylor

Factory, coal mine show connections matter most in Afghan business

The Ghori Cement Factory and the nearby Karkar Coal Mine have become symbols of the corruption, nepotism and mismanagement that pervade President Hamid Karzai's government, hobble the U.S. effort to rebuild Afghanistan, and fuel the Taliban-led insurgency that now threatens both sites. | 11/14/10 00:01:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Contractor leaves Afghan police stations half-complete

The failure of a construction company to finish six police stations in northern Afghanistan has created a swath of political and economic wreckage, undermining a central pillar of President Barack Obama's plans for extracting America from a decade of war. | 11/14/10 00:01:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

Flawed projects prove costly for Afghanistan, U.S.

The U.S. is spending billions of dollars to build facilities for Afghanistan's expanding national police and new garrisons for its army. The ambitious program is a linchpin of President Barack Obama's strategy to strengthen Afghan security forces so 100,000 U.S. troops can come home. However, like much of the wider Afghan reconstruction effort, it's faltering. | 11/14/10 00:01:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum, Warren P. Strobel, Marisa Taylor and Jonathan S. Landay

McCain, Lieberman urge Obama to drop 2011 Afghan date

A delegation of four U.S. senators, asserting that the U.S. counterinsurgency is making headway in Afghanistan, heightened pressure Wednesday on President Barack Obama to abandon his pledge that the United States would begin withdrawing troops in July 2011, a deadline that seems increasingly wobbly. | 11/10/10 17:21:19 By - Warren P. Strobel

Obama officials moving away from 2011 Afghan date

The Obama administration has decided to begin publicly walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to de-emphasize President Barack Obama's pledge that he'd begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011, administration and military officials have told McClatchy. | 11/09/10 18:49:32 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Obama: Pakistan's terror fight 'not as quick as we'd like'

President Barack Obama on Sunday defended the U.S. alliance with India's bitter rival Pakistan, but acknowledged that Pakistan's slow progress in rooting out terrorists "is not as quick as we'd like." But he implored Indians to trust Pakistan. | 11/07/10 20:44:11 By - Margaret Talev

Bragging about killing Afghan civilians was met with disbelief

Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs' big talk about killing Afghan civilians and getting away with it made him stand out when he joined a new platoon at an Army base in southern Afghanistan a year ago, according to written statements from his comrades. Some thought he had to be kidding. On Tuesday, Gibbs will appeared in a military court in Washington state where the evidence against him will be detailed. | 11/07/10 20:42:45 By - Adam Ashton

Obama tells India Pakistan making slow progress on terror

President Barack Obama on Sunday touched on the sensitive topic of Pakistan during a question-and-answer session with Indian students, defending the U.S. alliance with India's bitter rival and saying Pakistan is making slow progress in rooting out terrorists. | 11/07/10 07:15:20 By - Margaret Talev

Afghan soldier turns weapon on American troops, kills 2

A soldier from the U.S.-trained Afghan army apparently turned his weapon on American troops in volatile southern Afghanistan, killing at least two U.S. soldiers, NATO officials said Saturday. The incident is the latest that calls into question the allegiances of at least some members of the Afghan security forces. | 11/06/10 17:40:55 By - Warren P. Strobel and Habib Zohori

Candidates protest Afghanistan's September elections

A group of parliamentary candidates from across Afghanistan, saying they’d been wrongfully disqualified, on Saturday demanded a re-run of September’s elections and promised new rallies to protest electoral fraud. The move by a dozen candidates drawn from provinces in northern and central Afghanistan appears unlikely to change the outcome of the deeply flawed Sept. 18 election, whose final results have yet to be announced. | 11/06/10 09:57:54 By - Warren P. Strobel and Habib Zohori

$69.3 million Afghan-contracting fine may be a record

A nearly $70 million fine announced Friday against one of the U.S. government's largest Afghanistan contractors is an apparent record war-zone settlement, and it grew from a classic David vs. Goliath confrontation. | 11/05/10 17:21:09 By - Warren P. Strobel and Marisa Taylor

Contractor Louis Berger settles in Afghan overbilling probe

One of the government’s highest profile American contractors in Afghanistan has agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars to settle allegations that it overbilled the U.S. government. In return, the Justice Department will end its investigation into allegations that Louis Berger was intentionally over charging American taxpayers, individuals close to the investigation told McClatchy Thursday. | 11/04/10 15:04:32 By - Warren P. Strobel and Marisa Taylor

Soldier accused of leading Afghan civilian killings to top hearings schedule

Two of the 12 soldiers awaiting hearings at Joint Base Lewis-McChord for crimes they are accused of committing in Afghanistan had their court dates postponed last week. Seven others have had their hearings delayed in recent weeks. One result of the postponements is that most of the soldiers are now scheduled to appear in court for their Article 32 hearings after Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, who allegedly devised schemes to kill Afghan civilians. | 11/01/10 07:43:00 By - Adam Ashton

Iraqis gather plant samples to replace destroyed collection

On this mountainside in Iraqi Kurdistan, botanists are gathering hundreds of plant samples in an effort to protect their country's diverse environment, ranging from northern mountain ranges to the marshes of southern Iraq. | 10/28/10 15:52:08 By - Jane Arraf

U.S.-employed Afghan security firms often benefit Taliban insurgents

In a wood-paneled office here in the dusty fringes of Kabul, Hajji Shirin Dil feverishly works the phones. He could be a Wall Street day trader, if not for the sleepy gunmen by his side. Instead, Dil owns a profitable logistics company and is cutting deals with various warlords, whose private security companies protect his trucks carrying vital provisions to the foreign troops. | 10/28/10 15:27:46 By - Anand Gopal

U.S. can't untangle billions in Bush-era Afghan spending

The U.S. government knows it's awarded nearly $18 billion in contracts for rebuilding Afghanistan over the last three years, but it can't account for spending before 2007. The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction found it too difficult to untangle how billions have been spent because of the U.S. agencies' poor recordkeeping | 10/27/10 18:28:27 By - Marisa Taylor

U.S. officials, experts: No high-level Afghan peace talks under way

Despite news reports of high-level talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government, no significant peace negotiations are under way in Afghanistan, U.S. officials and Afghanistan experts said Thursday. These same experts said the reports, which appeared in a number of U.S. media outlets, could be part of a U.S. "information strategy" to divide and weaken the Taliban leadership. | 10/22/10 11:09:57 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel

U.S. soldier held in probe of Taliban detainee's death

The U.S. military detained an American soldier and launched a criminal investigation Tuesday after Afghan President Hamid Karzai publicly accused U.S. forces of shooting and killing a Taliban leader in his southern Afghanistan jail cell. | 10/19/10 19:16:21 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Family of soldier accused of killing Afghan civilians is skeptical of charges

Soldiers who fought in Iraq alongside Spc. Michael Wagnon don’t recognize their friend when they read reports of his alleged role in a plot to kill civilians while deployed in Afghanistan this year with a Joint Base Lewis-McChord Stryker brigade. | 10/18/10 07:45:43 By - Adam Ashton

Soldier accused in Afghan killings will face court martial

Spc. Jeremy Morlock, the first accused Afghanistan civilian killer to face charges in a military courtroom so far, will go to a full court-martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma and could face life in prison without possibility of parole. | 10/15/10 19:01:51 By - Matt Misterek

Risky Pakistan route imperils Afghanistan bound U.S. supplies

The proportion of supplies for American troops in Afghanistan passing through Pakistan has dropped by half in the past two years, as attacks and bureaucratic delays have forced Pakistani transport companies and individual truck drivers to reconsider the job. | 10/15/10 16:52:11 By - Saeed Shah

Senators question reconstruction oversight in Afghanistan

For the third time in less than two years, a bipartisan group of senators has raised alarms about oversight of the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan and why President Barack Obama has been slow to do something about it. | 10/15/10 15:09:47 By - David Goldstein

U.S. forces may have killed aid worker accidentally

U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of the international military coalition in Afghanistan, launched an investigation into the failed weekend rescue attempt of British aid worker Linda Norgrove after British Prime Minister David Cameron said she may have been killed by the U.S. special forces who staged the raid. | 10/11/10 08:50:09 By - Dion Nissenbaum

British aid worker held in Afghanistan killed in rescue attempt

A U.S.-led military rescue operation ended in failure Friday when a Taliban militant set off explosives that killed a British aid worker kidnapped two weeks ago in eastern Afghanistan. | 10/09/10 16:08:08 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Pakistan orders probe of video showing civilian executions

The Pakistani military on Friday ordered an investigation into a video that appears to show soldiers executing six civilians, following the recording’s exposure in the international media and U.S. pressure. The gruesome video was posted on the internet last month. | 10/08/10 07:08:06 By - Saeed Shah

Have floods pushed Pakistan to get its act together? Not yet

The U.S. and other foreign donors are voicing alarm that Pakistan's civilian government, having failed to organize rescue and relief during the floods that devastated a fifth of the country this past summer, still hasn't produced a reconstruction plan for the 20 million people affected. | 10/07/10 18:10:02 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistan blocks NATO convoys, but Taliban get free passage

For more than a week since a confused U.S. helicopter strike killed two Pakistan paramilitary soldiers, Pakistan has blocked scores of Western supply convoys on the vital route that supports the U.S-led military campaign in Afghanistan. | 10/07/10 16:45:03 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Officer: Army has evidence to try soldier in Afghans' deaths

An Army investigating officer this week recommended that a Stryker soldier accused of killing three civilians in Afghanistan should go to trial to face the charges. Col. Thomas Molloy found that that Spc. Jeremy Morlock's statements provided enough evidence to put him on trial for participating in the killings. A decision is expected within a few weeks. | 10/06/10 21:35:36 By - Adam Ashton

U.S. apologizes to Pakistan for troop deaths in airstrike

The U.S. apologized Wednesday for the deaths of two Pakistani paramilitary troops and the wounding of four others in a cross-border airstrike by U.S. helicopters that prompted Islamabad to close two vital supply routes used by the U.S.-led force in Afghanistan. | 10/06/10 18:43:26 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Soldier who blew whistle on Afghan killings moved for his safety

Spc. Adam Winfield, 21, became a whistle-blower in the case when he told Army investigators that he alerted his father about the crimes being committed by his Stryker brigade squad early this year and also shared with him that he feared for his own life. He's been moved to solitary confinement for his own protection. | 10/05/10 19:52:54 By - Matt Misterek

Afghan wrestles with protecting NATO supply routes

With a government-imposed deadline looming to shutter Afghanistan's private security companies, Afghanistan officials are pushing for the creation of a new state-run military brigade equipped with its own trucks and thousands of soldiers to ferry essential NATO supplies around the country. Protecting routes has emerged as a central issue in recent days because of attacks along the network of roads from Karachi, Pakistan, through the fabled Khyber Pass and into Afghanistan. | 10/03/10 19:59:38 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Afghan war crimes case reopens scrutiny of Iraq killings

Staff. Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, a central figure in the Afghanistan war-crimes case against Western Washington-based soldiers, talked about killing a family while he served in Iraq, according to a sworn statement from a fellow soldier obtained by The Seattle Times. | 09/30/10 21:02:26 By - Hal Bernton

Pakistan cuts key route to Afghanistan over deadly U.S. raid

Pakistan brought a critical NATO supply route for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan to an abrupt halt on Thursday after NATO aircraft crossed into Pakistan in a confused attack that killed three Pakistani paramilitary troops. Hundreds of trucks bound for the Torkham crossing, the main crossing point between Pakistan and Afghanistan, were halted as NATO said it was investigating the incident. | 09/30/10 11:42:05 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Karzai near tears as he launches Afghan peace commission

Choking back tears and showing signs of stress, Afghan President Hamid Karzai made an emotional appeal for unity Tuesday before unveiling a peacemaking commission that includes longtime Taliban rivals, former warlords and suspected drug barons. | 09/28/10 17:47:51 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Jonathan S. Landay

Stryker soldier accused of murdering Afghans has hearing

A Stryker brigade soldier accused of murdering Afghan civilians made regular use of narcotics during his deployment and was fearful of his squad leader who persuaded others to participate in schemes to kill people in combat-like situations, his attorney argued in a pre-trial hearing Monday. | 09/28/10 13:00:04 By - Adam Ashton

Prosecutors: Soldier was 'eager participant' in Afghan killings

A Stryker brigade soldier accused of murdering Afghan civilians made regular use of narcotics during his deployment and was fearful of his squad leader who persuaded others to participate in schemes to kill people in combat-like situations, his attorney argued in a pre-trial hearing Monday. Army prosecutors countered that the soldier was a "right-hand man" and an "eager participant." | 09/28/10 07:54:24 By - Adam Ashton

U.S. defends Pakistan incursion as 'self-defense'

Pakistan protested angrily Monday after the U.S.-led international force in Afghanistan confirmed that its helicopters staged cross-border air strikes last week against Pakistan-based Afghan militants "in self defense." | 09/27/10 18:25:31 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Saeed Shah

Videos raise new voter fraud questions in Afghanistan

As Afghan election officials sorted through thousands of voter complaints from the recent parliamentary election, new evidence emerged Monday of apparent vote rigging in southern Afghanistan. | 09/27/10 18:20:21 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Alaska soldier's drug use an issue in war crimes hearing

Spc. Jeremy Morlock on Monday will become the first soldier from Joint Base Lewis-McChord to face a hearing on allegations he and other soldiers killed civilians in Afghanistan in what could be a high-profile prosecution of U.S. war crimes in the Afghan war. Murlock's attorney will argue that his statements should be discounted, because he was taking at least 10 prescription drugs. | 09/26/10 19:03:18 By - Hal Bernton

First hearing for Stryker soldiers in Afghan slayings Monday

The charges stacked up against five soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord sound as if they rank among the worst war crimes in the past nine years of combat in the Middle East: killing Afghan civilians and keeping gruesome souvenirs from the attacks. | 09/26/10 09:40:36 By - Adam Ashton

Afghan election panel reports new evidence of serious fraud

Internal reports Tuesday from Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission provided new evidence of serious fraud in Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, including turnouts that exceeded 100 percent in many southeastern districts under the control of the Taliban or other militants. | 09/21/10 17:11:59 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Dion Nissenbaum

Firm gets new federal contract despite overbilling probe

Ignoring calls to scrutinize troubled contractors, the U.S. military has awarded a portion of a $490 million contract to an American corporation that's under investigation for possible fraud. | 09/20/10 18:47:51 By - Marisa Taylor

Fraud, violence tarnished Afghan vote, watchdog says

Afghanistan's leading election watchdog group accused the nation's warlords, powerbrokers and Taliban insurgents on Monday of tarnishing the closely watched parliamentary elections by stuffing ballots, attacking polling places and using fake voter cards. | 09/20/10 11:10:37 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Afghan election watchdog amasses evidence of fraud

Afghanistan's leading election watchdog expressed deepening alarm Sunday at reports it was amassing of vote-rigging and bloodshed that claimed at least two dozen lives in the nation's second legislative election since the 2001 U.S. invasion. | 09/19/10 17:44:12 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Saeed Shah

Government has let Blackwater, KBR off the hook, too

The Obama administration's dilemma in deciding how to punish contractors for contract violations and other infractions isn't confined to the Louis Berger Group or to Afghanistan. The administration decided last month not to bring criminal charges against the security contractor formerly known as Blackwater, now named Xe Services, after a nearly four-year investigation found sanctions violations, illegal exports and bribery, as McClatchy first reported in June. | 09/19/10 00:01:00 By - Marisa Taylor and Warren P. Strobel

U.S. contractor accused of fraud still winning big Afghan projects

On July 31, 2006, an employee of the Louis Berger Group, a contractor handling some of the most important U.S. rebuilding projects in Afghanistan, handed federal investigators explosive evidence that the company was intentionally and systematically overbilling American taxpayers. | 09/19/10 00:01:00 By - Marisa Taylor and Warren P. Strobel

Low turnout, Taliban intimidation plague Afghan elections

Deep-seated voter discontent, calculated attempts to rig the vote and widespread Taliban intimidation Saturday marred Afghanistan's parliamentary election, which was considered a bellwether for America's troubled campaign to stabilize the war-weary nation. | 09/18/10 15:30:49 By - Jonathan S. Landay, Saeed Shah and Dion Nissenbaum

Mother, daughter defy violence to run in Afghan elections

When Hawa Alam Nuristani ran for a seat in the Afghan parliament five years ago, gunmen ambushed her on a campaign visit to remote mountain villages and she survived a five-hour rescue on donkeys and her supporters' shoulders with blood oozing from a leg wound. Now she's not only seeking re-election from Nuristan province in parliamentary elections Saturday, but her daughter has followed her mother into the cutthroat arena of Afghan politics. | 09/17/10 19:16:54 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Election campaigning in Kandahar? Don't leave the house

The specter of violence hangs over Saturday's parliamentary election in Afghanistan — and no place moreso than in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city. There, candidates don't hold rallies. They don't even leave their homes or hotel rooms. In the face of Taliban assassinations, it's just too dangerous for them to venture out. | 09/16/10 20:13:17 By - Saeed Shah

Another kind of Afghan mission: Organizing a roping contest

Of all of Arnold Norman's missions as an agricultural adviser at a remote outpost in Afghanistan, organizing a roping competition would not have appeared anywhere. But Norman, 59, an avid team roper on weekends in Texas, discovered dozens of young American soldiers, and a few Afghans, who found swinging a rope at a dummy steer to be an unexpected salve for the stresses of combat and loneliness. | 09/15/10 21:09:44 By - Chris Vaughn

U.S.-led forces meet little initial resistance in Kandahar operation

U.S.-led forces began a key operation Wednesday in the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan, meeting surprisingly little initial resistance in the district in the south of the country that gave birth to the Taliban. | 09/15/10 18:49:38 By - Saeed Shah

U.S. begins long-awaited assault on Taliban stronghold

Three battalions of the 101st Airborne, bolstered by Army rangers and special forces, stormed into the Zhari district west of Kandahar city before dawn on Wednesday in an area U.S. troops call "the heart of darkness." Zhari has been at the forefront of Afghanistan's wars for the last 30 years, an area that Soviet invaders never pacified in the 1980s and that gave rise to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader who controlled Afghanistan when al Qaida launched the 9/11 terrorist attacks. | 09/15/10 02:23:29 By - Saeed Shah

Warlords and killers seek re-election to Afghan parliament

Hundreds of minority Hazara civilians were killed in Afshar in February 1993 in one of the bloodiest chapters of the battle for Kabul, between rival U.S.-armed guerrilla factions that had ousted the Soviet-backed regime the previous year. The man who directed the onslaught, according to residents and human rights groups, was Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf, an Islamist member of parliament's lower house who's close to U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai. He's running for re-election from Kabul, and analysts say he could be the next speaker of the lower house. | 09/14/10 16:46:31 By - Jonathan S. Landay

45-year-old U.S. infantryman does heavy lifting in Afghanistan

Jeffery Williamson was so angered by the 9/11 attacks that he decided to join the military, only to be told that at 36, he was a year too old to enlist. Five years later, on the day the Army raised the age limit to 42, he joined at 41. He's served in Iraq, and now he's back on the front lines, this time in Afghanistan. | 09/13/10 16:02:18 By - Saeed Shah

Patron of Afghan school is local warlord, U.S. ally

There's only one functioning school in all of Zhari district in insurgency-plagued southern Afghanistan, and it's named for an anti-Taliban local strongman who uses his own private militia to protect it. | 09/10/10 16:50:30 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan police often find themselves in combat

The Obama administration's plans to begin withdrawing some U.S. troops from Afghanistan in July, as well as allied NATO countries' eagerness to get their forces out, depend on handing over security to the Afghan army and police. However, the Afghan National Police, not the army, are often in the frontlines of the military campaign. | 09/09/10 19:43:57 By - Saeed Shah

In Afghanistan, vital information is sometimes lost in translation

American soldiers in Afghanistan are relying on civilian interpreters who in some cases don't know the languages they were hired to speak, resulting in dangerous military mistakes. | 09/09/10 19:08:29 By - Ben Arnoldy, The Christian Science Monitor

Stryker brigade soldiers allegedly kept 'trophy' body parts

New details in Army charge sheets paint a disturbing picture of depravity of 12 Stryker soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord during their recent deployment to Afghanistan. Six of the men kept trophy body parts from Afghan corpses, including a skull and fingers, the charge sheets say. | 09/09/10 13:11:41 By - Mike Archbold

More Stryker Brigade soldiers charged with assault on Afghans

Five soldiers from a Western Washington-based infantry brigade have been charged with aggravated assault for firing on three Afghan men, expanding the scope of the alleged crimes committed by a troubled group in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. | 09/03/10 18:09:26 By - Hal Bernton

Taliban tries to stop the music in Afghanistan — again

Farouq Pacha's shop was one in a string of music stores to become a new target for militants many suspect are Taliban enforcers looking for new ways to re-impose their conservative views — even in once-stable havens such as Jalalabad. | 09/03/10 17:30:09 By - Hashim Shukoor

Officials: Afghan corruption undermines anti-Taliban campaign

As the last of the 30,000 additional troops that President Barack Obama dispatched to Afghanistan arrived, top American military leaders here conceded Friday that the country's pervasive corruption threatens to undermine the effort to clear communities of insurgents and hand them over to governments that Afghans consider legitimate. | 09/03/10 17:29:29 By - Nancy A. Youssef

From one Afghan setback, U.S. strategy finds success

Chris Harich was catching up on e-mails at his cramped southern Afghanistan office in mid-June when a colleague popped his head in to deliver the news: The Arghandab district governor, America's main political point man in the volatile valley, had just been assassinated. | 09/02/10 18:54:45 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Washington Democrat sees progress during Afghan trip

Since he last visited Afghanistan, Rep. Rick Larsen said, the lights are on in Kabul 24/7, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has opened a chapter in the Afghan capital, and the market there is so jammed with traffic that he and the three other congressmen he was with couldn't get in. | 09/02/10 18:54:27 By - Les Blumenthal

U.S. vehicles destroy Afghan bombs by rolling over them

Spc. Joshua Joe drives a "Husky," a giant vehicle built to find and withstand the blast of a roadside bomb, putting him in the front line of the U.S.-led coalition's battle against the Taliban's most effective weapon in Afghanistan. | 09/02/10 18:52:26 By - Saeed Shah

Karzai, NATO at odds over another Afghan airstrike

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and NATO disagreed Thursday over whether an airstrike in northern Afghanistan killed the top member of re-emerging insurgent group or 10 election workers. | 09/02/10 18:27:17 By - Nancy A. Youssef

U.S. toll rising in Afghanistan: 22 soldiers killed since Friday

U.S. forces lost 22 soldiers in Afghanistan, mostly to roadside bombs, since Friday, marking a bloody step-up in the insurgency as a major U.S.-led offensive seeks to capture the spiritual homeland of the Taliban movement in Kandahar. | 09/01/10 08:10:53 By - Saeed Shah

Lawmaker: July 2011 too soon to start leaving Afghanistan

Just back from a nine-day trip to the world's trouble spots, Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., said Tuesday that despite progress, plans to start reducing U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan next summer are probably unrealistic. | 08/31/10 15:58:46 By - Les Blumenthal

U.S. soldiers face murder charges in deaths of Afghan civilians

In one of the most serious war crimes cases to emerge from the nine-year war in Afghanistan, five U.S. soldiers from a Stryker brigade in the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division have been charged with murder for allegedly killing three Afghan civilians. | 08/25/10 10:59:11 By - Hal Bernton

Afghanistan's new war crimes museum punts on still-powerful warlords

He was a very tall man who wore outsized shoes and blue clothes. Sayed Husain taught history and prayed at the mosque, and for that he was thrown into jail in 1979. Educated people like him were the first to be rounded up when the Communists came to power in 1978, kicking off Afghanistan's three decades of turmoil. | 08/24/10 16:22:04 By - Ben Arnoldy, Christian Science Monitor

Pakistan president claims criticism is sign of his popularity

In an interview with a small group of foreign reporters, President Asif Ali Zardari warned that Taliban extremists and "rightist forces" could take advantage of the country's floods crisis. At least one prominent political figure in exile over the weekend all but called for a military coup. | 08/23/10 15:06:51 By - Saeed Shah

Family, U.S. offer differing versions of deadly Afghan raid

When Ismail Nemeti set out from Kabul last week to join his family in nearby Wardak province for the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, friends said, his biggest fear was running into Taliban forces who might question his allegiances. Before sunrise the next day, Aman lay bleeding in his family guest room, alongside two of his brothers, all shot dead by U.S. special forces who were on the hunt for a Taliban leader. | 08/20/10 15:02:37 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

Under pressure, Karzai agrees to back anti-graft efforts

Under pressure from Washington, Afghan President Hamid Karzai publicly agreed Friday to back the independence of two American-backed anti-corruption groups that the Afghan president had threatened to rein in amid an ongoing investigation that's targeted one of his trusted palace aides. | 08/20/10 15:01:27 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Winning in Afghanistan may hinge on power of persuasion

The American Army had arrived. Taliban fighters had been pushed on the defensive with surprising ease. With U.S. attack helicopters zipping by overhead, Babur elders gathered alongside swaths of red grapes drying in the southern Afghanistan dirt to hear from the new village rulers. | 08/19/10 19:03:31 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Top Senate Democrat Kerry presses Karzai on corruption

U.S. Sen. John Kerry arrived in Kabul on Tuesday for another tough diplomatic mission to smooth over newly strained relations between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Obama administration. | 08/17/10 13:33:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Meeting with Karzai opponents highlights U.S. policy dispute

Four members of the House of Representatives held talks last month in Europe with leaders of Afghanistan's ethnic minorities opposed to President Hamid Karzai and his U.S.-backed initiative to open political negotiations with the Taliban. | 08/16/10 19:03:45 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel

Fired Afghan commander McChrystal will teach at Yale in fall

Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal will be a senior fellow at Yale's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs for the fall semester and will teach a graduate level course that will examine how globalization has increased the complexity of modern leadership. | 08/16/10 18:46:06 By - David Owens

Karzai to ban private security companies in Afghanistan

The abrupt announcement Monday that all private companies providing security services must close by the end of the year places a new burden on NATO and U.S. forces, which employ the companies to provide security along key transport routes. | 08/16/10 15:35:20 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

Pakistan flood crisis raises fears of country's collapse

The humanitarian and economic disaster caused by the worst floods in Pakistan's history could spark political unrest that could destabilize the government, dealing a major blow to the Obama administration's efforts to fight violent Islamic extremism. The government's shambling response could force President Asif Ali Zardari from office. | 08/13/10 19:06:38 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

U.S. soldiers' mission shows Afghan war's uncertainties

After months of deadly and often demoralizing fighting alongside mediocre Afghan forces in one of the Taliban's most intractable strongholds outside Kandahar city, the Americans in one Army company are asking themselves if it had been worth it. Amid growing U.S. concerns about the war, no one is feeling the pressure to demonstrate progress more than the Americans working on the rustic, isolated bases in southern Afghanistan. | 08/13/10 17:22:14 By - Dion Nissenbaum

U.N. appeals for Pakistan aid as flood threat continues

The United Nations appealed Wednesday for $459 million in emergency aid for Pakistan as fresh monsoon rains raised fears that new flooding could drive more people from their homes, deepening the humanitarian catastrophe. It's affected some 14 million people, of whom an estimated 1,600 have been killed and about 2 million left homeless. | 08/11/10 17:54:44 By - Saeed Shah

In small rubber boat, Pakistani navy searches for flood victims

The craft was part of an operation to rescue people around Sukkur, the city in Sindh province where the wall of water unleashed by the worst flooding in Pakistan's history was cresting Tuesday as it moved south down the Indus River toward the Arabian Sea. | 08/10/10 18:42:51 By - Saeed Shah

U.N.: Taliban attacks drive up Afghan civilian casualties

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan surged by 31 percent during the first six months of this year over the same period in 2009, driven by increased bombings and assassinations by the Taliban-led insurgency, the United Nations reported Tuesday. | 08/10/10 16:38:20 By - Hashim Shukoor

When troops' belongings stolen, North Carolina comes to the rescue

Army Maj. Jeff Leopold packed photos of family, uniforms, and his faithful iPod, dropping everything into a Milvan headed for Afghanistan. The Milvan was shipped three months ago, so it would be waiting for the troops. Yet two weeks ago, when they went to get their stuff at Bagram Air Base, the box had been cleaned out. Everything had been stolen. | 08/09/10 12:50:38 By - David Perlmutt

U.S. dentist slain in Afghanistan wouldn't proselytize, brother says

The twin brother of one of the 10 medical volunteers killed in Afghanistan last week spoke out Sunday about the nature of his brother's work, saying there was no element of Christian proselytizing. | 08/09/10 06:41:12 By - Lisa Demer

Ten medical aid workers robbed, killed in Afghanistan

Ten members of an international medical mission, including six Americans, were robbed and killed while returning from a two-week trek through risky parts of eastern Afghanistan, Afghan officials and organizers of the aid mission said Saturday. | 08/07/10 13:23:32 By - By Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

Pakistani floods threaten lives, crops and government

The wall of floodwater that's rushing through Pakistan devastated new areas Thursday, reaching the most heavily populated parts of the country, officials and aid workers said. | 08/05/10 17:08:22 By - Saeed Shah

Ex-Guantanamo detainee now campaigning in Afghanistan

In a country whose young parliament is filled with warlords, suspected drug barons, one-time mujahedeen fighters and religious zealots, Izatullah Nasrat Yar can still make history. Yar has set out to become the first "enemy combatant" once held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay to become an elected Afghan lawmaker. | 08/04/10 19:00:38 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Petraeus renews limits on airstrikes in Afghanistan

Afghanistan commander Army Gen. David Petraeus has renewed orders to American troops to refrain from calling in artillery or air power when battling Taliban forces unless they're certain that no civilians are present. | 08/04/10 18:57:12 By - Nancy A. Youssef

U.S. PR offensive highlights insurgent attacks on Afghan civilians

In one of his first major initiatives since he took command of the international force in Afghanistan a month ago, Army Gen. David Petraeus has launched a public relations offensive to focus attention on the Taliban-led insurgency's killings and abuse of Afghan civilians. | 08/04/10 17:54:02 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Dion Nissenbaum

U.N.-listed 'terror front' group leads flood relief in Pakistan

A militant Islamist group linked to the 2008 terrorist assault on Mumbai, India, is openly distributing aid to victims of the floods in northwest Pakistan, according to members of the group. | 08/03/10 19:21:51 By - Saeed Shah

As Pakistani government falters after flooding, Islamists fill void

Amid wide complaints about an inadequate government response, private charities, including some linked to Islamic extremists, are stepping in to help victims of the worst flooding in Pakistan in decades, which has claimed some 1,500 lives. | 08/02/10 18:37:27 By - Saeed Shah

Critical U.S. battle begins in Afghanistan amid many doubts

As the U.S.-led coalition launches its most critical military operation of the nine-year war in Afghanistan, doubts are growing about whether the United States and its allies can contain the surging Taliban-led insurgency and prevent the country from reverting to an al Qaida sanctuary or erupting in civil war. | 07/30/10 21:10:52 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Jonathan S. Landay

Body of second missing sailor found in Afghanistan

The body of the second of two U.S. sailors who went missing after driving into an ambush has been found outside of Kabul, Pentagon officials said Thursday, but the circumstances that led the men to drive alone into one of Afghanistan's most dangerous regions remained unclear. | 07/29/10 19:01:51 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Hashim Shukoor

Search continues for missing sailor in Afghanistan

The body of a sailor who was killed in a Taliban ambush arrived home in the United States Tuesday as the military continued a massive search for his comrade, whom the Taliban claimed it kidnapped last week in eastern Afghanistan. | 07/27/10 20:44:46 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Pentagon identifies sailor missing in Afghanistan

The Defense Department on Tuesday identified a missing U.S. serviceman in Afghanistan as Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove, a West Seattle sailor who is the target of a massive search by Afghan and international forces. A second sailor, Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin McNeley, was killed. His body has been recovered. | 07/27/10 18:29:55 By - Hal Bernton and Steve Miletich

Officials: WikiLeaks release could hurt Afghan war effort

The publication of some 92,000 classified U.S. military reports on the Afghanistan war could complicate the Obama administration's strategy for ending the Taliban-led insurgency by hurting cooperation with Pakistan and throttling the flow of vital ground intelligence, current and former U.S. officials said Monday. | 07/26/10 19:54:57 By - Jonathan S. Landay, Saeed Shah and Nancy A. Youssef

New checkpoints are key to coming Afghan military operation

When the U.S. and Afghan militaries launch their long-awaited Kandahar operation as early as this weekend, the key to its success may lie in some obscure mountain roads that connect the dusty heartland of the Taliban insurgency with a fertile valley nearby. | 07/23/10 18:57:55 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Pakistan extends powerful army chief's term for 3 years

The Pakistani government on Thursday gave the country's top military official, army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, another three years in his post, a move that analysts said would bolster Pakistan's anti-terrorism fight and cement its role in neighboring Afghanistan. | 07/22/10 18:51:37 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan president agrees to U.S. withdrawal plan

Joined by leaders from Iran to America, President Hamid Karzai embraced plans Tuesday for Afghan forces to begin taking control of their country by next summer as another bleak assessment of the war raised new questions about the timing of the hand-over. | 07/20/10 19:28:19 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

As Afghanistan's future unfolds, concerns turn to women's health

Just hours after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated her commitment to protecting Afghan women's rights at an international conference in Kabul, members of women's advocacy groups met Tuesday on Capitol Hill to discuss progress and issues concerning Afghan women's health. | 07/20/10 19:24:16 By - Reid Davenport

Clinton unveils $500 million in aid projects for Pakistan

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday unveiled $500 million worth of civilian aid projects for key ally Pakistan, in an attempt to counter rampant anti-Americanism in the country by reaching out to the population with tangible help. | 07/19/10 18:24:27 By - Saeed Shah

Taliban's Mullah Omar orders attacks on women, U.S. says

NATO officials said the new order comes one year after Mullah Omar issued a detailed code of conduct that called on Taliban fighters to protect Afghan civilians.A Taliban spokesman dismissed the report as American propaganda and some Afghan analysts expressed doubts that the Taliban leader would specifically single out Afghan women as targets. | 07/17/10 18:27:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Saeed Shah

Failed Pakistan-India talks could hurt Afghanistan efforts

Recriminations flew between India and Pakistan on Friday, a day after failed peace talks that could have negative fallout for the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan. | 07/16/10 16:41:07 By - Saeed Shah

Yoga, blast walls and life in the Afghan 'Kabubble'

If you're thinking about taking a yoga class at Kabul's Fig Health Centre, you'll be relieved to know that the yoga studio windows are packed with tilting stacks of green sandbags. That way, if a car bomb goes off during yoga class, the sandbags and anti-blast glass will offer a little extra protection from flying shrapnel. | 07/15/10 13:48:49 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Georgia's Isakson slaps Steele on Afghan war comments

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., sharply criticized recent comments by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on Tuesday. Isakson, in remarks at a news conference outside of Robins Air Force Base, said Steele's criticism of the war in Afghanistan "was totally unacceptable." | 07/06/10 16:27:40 By - Thomas L. Day

Lawmaker: White House, military not on same page on Afghanistan

Though he acknowledged the top general in Afghanistan had to go after making controversial remarks, Rep. Adam Smith said that Gen. Stanley McChrystal received only tepid support from the White House for his strategy and civilian and military leaders apparently aren't on the same wavelength. | 07/04/10 06:56:55 By - Les Blumenthal

Britain warns against 'premature' Afghanistan withdrawal

Britain warned Wednesday against a "premature" withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan as the U.S.-led international force suffered its highest monthly death toll of the nearly nine-year-old war. | 06/30/10 19:10:14 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Petraeus' political skills on display before Senate panel

Army Gen. David Petraeus' reputation as a political operator was on display during his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, deflecting worries that the administration's Afghanistan strategy was off course and marked by divisiveness. | 06/29/10 18:53:06 By - Nancy A. Youssef

U.S. military changes won't affect Kabul hospital, Fresno doctor says

The founder of a Fresno-based humanitarian project that provides medical care for Afghan civilians says his project shouldn't be endangered by a recent shakeup in the U.S. military leadership in that country. | 06/29/10 18:13:49 By - Andrew Seidman

Watchdog: Afghan forces won't be ready for U.S. withdrawal

Afghanistan's military and police aren't on track to meet President Barack Obama's 18-month timetable for starting to withdraw U.S. troops, according to a report released on Monday by an independent watchdog group. | 06/28/10 23:00:00 By - Reid Davenport

Obama, officials don't plan more changes in Afghanistan

Amid calls for the Obama administration to make more changes to its strategy and leadership in Afghanistan, top U.S. officials said Thursday that while their strategy may be troubled, they think it's salvageable. | 06/24/10 19:27:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Obama's Afghan strategy remains plagued by problems

President Barack Obama's decision to accept Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation and draft his superior, Gen. David Petraeus, to lead the war in Afghanistan eliminates a source of friction, but it doesn't address the problems plaguing U.S. policy there. | 06/23/10 19:45:01 By - Nancy A. Youssef, Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

Sen. Graham: Gen. McChrystal crossed lines 'you can't cross'

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Wednesday that Gen. Stanley McChrystal left President Barack Obama no choice but to accept his resignation, but Graham criticized Obama for sticking to his plans to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan next year | 06/23/10 18:38:53 By - James Rosen

Obama ousts Gen. McChrystal, nominates Petraeus

President Barack Obama on Wednesday accepted the resignation of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of the war in Afghanistan. "It is the right thing for our mission in Afghanistan, for our military and for our country," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden. | 06/23/10 12:30:08 By - Margaret Talev and Nancy A. Youssef

Afghan President Karzai voices support for Gen. McChrystal

Karzai fears that if Gen. Stanley McChrystal leaves, a dangerous gap will open up in the war's leadership, a spokesman said. Privately, some senior Afghan officials said they it would be a "disaster" if McChrystal is removed, seeing the campaign and the U.S. general as synonymous. | 06/23/10 08:55:36 By - Saeed Shah

Two Fort Richardson soldiers awarded Silver Stars for bravery

The U.S. Army awarded the Silver Star, its third-highest medal, to Spc. Ryan. S. Chester and Spc. Robert E. Parson for combat in Afghanistan. Chester fought to protect his platoon after being wounded in an ambush. In a different action, Parson fought to protect the evacuation of his wounded squad leader. | 06/23/10 07:45:22 By - Blaire Maloney

McChrystal recall culminates months of tensions with White House

The White House decision to order Afghanistan commander Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal on Tuesday to leave a flailing war and answer to President Barack Obama about comments he and aides made in a forthcoming magazine article culminates months of tension between the military and political leadership over how to conduct the war and who's in charge | 06/22/10 10:41:21 By - Nancy A. Youssef

McChrystal recalled to Washington over Rolling Stone article

The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan was recalled to Washington on Tuesday after he was forced to make a "sincerest apology" over a magazine article in which he and unnamed aides criticized and lampooned senior Obama administration officials. | 06/22/10 08:45:50 By - Saeed Shah

Report finds U.S. tax money may be funding Afghan insurgents

Private security contractors protecting the convoys that supply U.S. military bases in Afghanistan are paying millions of dollars a week in "passage bribes" to the Taliban and other insurgent groups to travel along Afghan roads, a congressional investigation released Monday has found. | 06/22/10 08:02:45 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Report finds U.S. tax money may be funding Taliban

Private security contractors protecting convoys supplying U.S. military bases in Afghanistan are paying millions of dollars a week in "passage bribes" to the Taliban and other insurgent groups to travel along Afghan roads, a congressional investigation released Monday has found. | 06/21/10 20:04:06 By - Nancy Youseff

Afghan parliamentary vote will test security conditions

voters in the Afghan capital elect a new parliament later this year, they'll face a bewildering choice of more than 700 candidates that threatens to turn the election into a lottery. | 06/21/10 18:51:35 By - Saeed Shah

New Afghan commission is setting Taliban suspects free

Afghanistan's controversial new commission formed to release suspected Taliban prisoners has set free 14 detainees already, primarily from U.S. custody, and over two dozen more releases are imminent, Afghan officials told McClatchy on Sunday. The commission was a concession to get the Taliban to join peace talks. | 06/20/10 16:51:28 By - Saeed Shah

5 U.S. soldiers accused in Afghan civilian deaths

Three more soldiers from Tacoma's Joint Base Lewis-McChord have been charged in the alleged premeditated murders of three Afghan civilians this year – crimes committed using grenades and rifles, according to military authorities. | 06/17/10 12:58:48 By - Mike Archibold

Experts: U.S. has no long-term political strategy for Afghanistan

The Obama administration is focused on meeting its July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, but it has no political strategy to help stabilize the country, current and former U.S. officials and other experts are warning. | 06/16/10 19:40:36 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

Obama besieged by worsening problems on many fronts

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama saw President George W. Bush's missteps in the Gulf Coast, war policy and the economy as easy targets for criticism. Now Obama is being dogged by variations on the same themes, his judgment under the microscope of public scrutiny and his options for action limited. | 06/15/10 21:17:29 By - Margaret Talev, Jonathan S. Landay and David Lightman

Petraeus recovers after collapsing at Senate hearing

Gen. David Petraeus collapsed Tuesday during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, halting the hearing and raising renewed questions about the key military commanders' health. | 06/15/10 10:55:45 By - Nancy Youssef and David Lightman

McChrystal: Kandahar operation 'will happen more slowly'

Amid a spike in Afghan and American deaths in southern Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO commander in the country, conceded Thursday that the military push to secure the Taliban's spiritual capital will take longer than anticipated. | 06/10/10 19:53:16 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

Sprawling Karachi becomes an Islamic extremist melting pot

The jihadist recruiter, seated in an office attached to a lavish mosque in an affluent residential area of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, said volunteers who came to join the fight in Afghanistan these days were modern, educated Pakistanis. | 06/09/10 18:57:24 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan president Karzai ousts 2 top pro-Western ministers

Afghanistan's top intelligence chief and interior minister abruptly resigned on Sunday after President Hamid Karzai criticized the pair for failing to stop last week's attack on a nationwide peace conference as the president was addressing the gathering. | 06/06/10 17:54:23 By - By Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

Afghan delegates back peace talks with Taliban

Afghan President Hamid Karzai got a modest political boost Friday when a national peace conference backed his efforts to launch substantive talks with the Taliban and other Afghan insurgent forces. | 06/04/10 16:42:45 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

Taliban attack Afghan peace conference as Karzai speaks

Standing before the country's power brokers and tribal elite Wednesday morning, Afghan President Hamid Karzai was about 10 minutes into his nationally televised appeal for peace when the Taliban responded with a rocket that slammed into a nearby hillside. | 06/02/10 06:35:42 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

Afghan president Karzai to open assembly on peace

Thousands of police have fanned out across Kabul as the Afghanistan capital prepares for Wednesday's opening of a national assembly that President Hamid Karzai hopes will give him a mandate to pursue talks with the Taliban. He's hoping the gathering, known as a jirga, provides a psychological boost. | 06/01/10 16:26:06 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Taliban seize border town as Afghan forces retreat

As U.S. forces mounts an offensive in southern Afghanistan, hundreds of Taliban fighters overwhelmed local government forces in a remote town near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan Saturday. | 05/29/10 17:30:05 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

'Cup of Joe' gives troops a jolt of caffeine and a thank you

Under the "Cup of Joe" program, anyone with $2 to spare can buy a cup of super-premium, organic coffee for a soldier deployed on or near a U.S. military base in support of Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom. | 05/29/10 14:37:53 By - Allison Kennedy

Extremists assault religious minority in Pakistan, killing 70

Extremists stormed two mosques belonging to a religious minority in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore Friday, killing at least 70 people in the worst-ever assault on the country's Ahmadi community. | 05/28/10 07:27:43 By - Saeed Shah

U.S. military criticizes McClatchy story on McChrystal in Marjah

The NATO International Security Assistance Force has criticized the headline on McClatchy's report Monday from Marjah, Afghanistan, "McChrystal calls Marjah a 'bleeding ulcer' in Afghan campaign," as mischaracterizing the remarks of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of ISAF forces in Afghanistan. | 05/26/10 18:48:00 By -

McChrystal calls Marjah a 'bleeding ulcer' in Afghan campaign

Gen. Stanley McChrystal sat gazing at maps of Marjah as a Marine battalion commander asked him for more time to oust Taliban fighters from a longtime stronghold. "How many days do you think we have before we run out of support by the international community?" McChrystal replied. | 05/24/10 17:26:33 By - Dion Nissenbaum

U.S. soldiers face probe into Afghan civilian deaths

The U.S. military is investigating allegations that a small group of American soldiers deliberately killed three Afghan civilians in a series of shootings earlier this year, Western officials familiar with the case said Friday. | 05/21/10 17:32:34 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Times Square bomber: Pakistani novels shed light on why

Americans who are searching for an explanation for the attempted bombing of New York's Times Square this month should pick up two recent and critically acclaimed novels by Pakistani authors, which tell how the events that followed 9/11 made Pakistani New Yorkers feel alienated and angry. The heroes of the books were integrated, happy immigrants who found that New York and the U.S. turned ugly after 9/11, which led to their inner journeys away from the America they'd come to love. | 05/21/10 15:07:58 By - Saeed Shah

Court: Bagram prisoners don't have Guantanamo habeas rights

A key appellate court on Friday concluded that prisoners held at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan do not have the right to challenge their captivity in U.S. courts as detainees at Guantanamo can. Citing geographic and other differences between the air base in Afghanistan and the naval base in Cuba, the three-judge panel overturned a trial court's conclusion that the Bagram detainees were constitutionally similar to those held in Guantanmo. | 05/21/10 13:01:24 By - Michael Doyle

U.S. pressure on Pakistan may risk terrorist backlash

As the U.S. turns up the pressure on Pakistan to launch a new military offensive in the North Waziristan tribal area following the Times Square bombing attempt, analysts warn that a frontal assault could lead to a terrible terrorist backlash. | 05/18/10 19:34:51 By - Saeed Shah

Suicide bomber hits NATO convoy in Afghanistan; 18 dead

— As Afghan President Hamid Karzai was preparing Tuesday to trumpet the success of his recent meetings in Washington, a suicide bomber in Kabul killed 18 people — including five U.S. troops — a grim reminder that the capital is still a prime target for Taliban insurgents. | 05/18/10 04:27:03 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

Afghan report links president's brother to illegal land grabs

Afghan military investigators have accused Ahmed Wali Karzai, U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai's controversial half-brother, of intervening to protect powerful allies who are squatting illegally on government property in southern Afghanistan. | 05/17/10 23:10:34 By - Dion Nissenbaum

U.S. releases Afghan prisoners in bid to mend relations

So far this year, U.S. officials have freed nearly 200 men as part of the program that enlists tribal elders, lawmakers and local leaders called upon to make sure the detainees don't use their freedom to fight U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. | 05/15/10 16:21:13 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Hashim Shukoor

U.S. efforts in Kandahar, barely begun, already are faltering

Key military operations have been delayed until fall, efforts to improve local government are having little impact, a Taliban assassination campaign has brought a sense of dread to Kandahar and a turning point may not come until November, and perhaps later. | 05/13/10 21:05:11 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Jonathan S. Landay

Pentagon rethinking value of major counterinsurgencies

Nearly a decade after the United States began to focus its military training and equipment purchases almost exclusively on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military strategists are quietly shifting gears, saying that large-scale counterinsurgency efforts cost too much and last too long. | 05/12/10 19:05:39 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Obama, Karzai try to project unity as new reports raise doubts

President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai sought Wednesday to project a unified front on defeating the Taliban-led insurgency, acknowledging past differences but insisting that reports of tensions over corruption in Karzai's government and civilian deaths from U.S. military operations were overblown. | 05/12/10 13:43:03 By - Jonathan S. Landay

N.C. Sen. Hagan wants Pakistani Taliban declared terrorists

North Carolina U.S. Senator Kay Hagan and four other Democrats have called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to declare a Pakistani Taliban group a foreign terrorist organization, saying its atrocities — until now contained within the Pakistani borders — have reached U.S. soil with the attempted Times Square car bombing. | 05/12/10 07:35:04 By - Barbara Barrett

Pakistan can't link N.Y. bombing suspect to extremist groups

Pakistani investigators have been unable to find evidence linking Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bombing suspect, with the Pakistani Taliban or other extremist groups, Pakistani security officials said Tuesday. Investigators also have been unable to substantiate Shahzad's reported confession that he received bomb-making training in the country's wild Waziristan region, officials said. | 05/11/10 17:29:51 By - Saeed Shah

Corruption, incompetence charges plague new Afghan police force

Although the members of Afghanistan's elite new police force have been touted as the country's best and brightest, U.S. military strategists find that they're plagued by the same problems as Afghanistan's conventional police, who are widely considered corrupt, ineffective and inept. | 05/10/10 17:33:30 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Interrogator says Khadr was told he'd likely be raped in U.S.

Interrogators told a wounded Canadian teenager, held at the U.S. detention center at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, that another Afghan detainee had been gang raped in a U.S. prison after he'd been sent there for not telling the truth, a former Army interrogator told a military court at Guantanamo Thursday. The story was fictitious, but intended to frighten Khadr. | 05/06/10 13:35:04 By - Carol Rosenberg

Would-be New York bomber's Pakistan neighbors in disbelief

Friends and relatives of accused Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad expressed shock Wednesday at his involvement in the failed attack, as a picture emerged of a respected, self-made family with no known links to extremism. | 05/05/10 18:51:14 By - Saeed Shah

Guantanamo hearing: Ex interrogator felt sorry for Khadr

A former U.S. Army interrogator known to captives at a lockup in Afghanistan as "The Monster'' testified Wednesday that he felt sorry for a gravely wounded, recently captured Omar Khadr because "he was probably in one of the worst places on Earth.'' | 05/05/10 15:31:05 By - Carol Rosenberg

Officials doubt Pakistani Taliban behind New York bomb attempt

U.S. counterterrorism officials and South Asian analysts said Monday they doubted the Pakistani Taliban's claims of responsibility for Saturday's attempted bombing in Midtown Manhattan, but the claims nonetheless underscored the group's soaring ambitions as a flag-bearer for al Qaida. | 05/03/10 19:29:21 By - Saeed Shah and Warren P. Strobel

Changes to key Guantanamo evidence innocent, officer says

An Army Special Forces officer testified Saturday that he altered a field report to directly implicate a Canadian detainee now being held at Guantanamo in a fatal grenade attack in Afghanistan years later because he realized that he got it wrong and wanted to fix the historical record. The officer denied suggestions that he changed the report at prosecutors' urging. | 05/01/10 17:31:58 By - Carol Rosenberg

Afghans protest after U.S. military kills parliamentarian's kin

Irate demonstrators burned tires and blocked traffic in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday after U.S.-led forces killed an armed relative of an Afghan lawmaker during a night raid on her home, according to military and Afghan officials. | 04/29/10 20:16:41 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Pakistan's Punjab heartland alive with extremist groups

Even the Pakistan army conducts military operations against Taliban guerrillas in northwest tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, banned al Qaida-linked groups are operating openly in the Pakistani heartland of Punjab, which itself has been the target of dozens of terror attacks. | 04/29/10 20:08:52 By - Saeed Shah

U.S. plan to arm Afghan militia founders on tribal rivalries

The detritus of tribal war litters the road that leads into this quiet mountain hamlet in eastern Afghanistan. The charred bodies of vehicles and the skeletal remains of destroyed houses fill the desert that flanks the road. Most of the shops in the main bazaar are shuttered, and some residents have packed up and left. | 04/27/10 16:30:54 By - Anand Gopal

As power shortages spread, Pakistan switches off the lights

Amid fears that severe energy shortages could touch off riots, Pakistan will announce drastic measures this week to save electricity, including a shorter workweek and restrictions on nighttime wedding celebrations, government officials said Wednesday. | 04/21/10 17:28:01 By - Saeed Shah

Iceland volcano delays evac for U.S. wounded in Afghanistan

Rather than flying from Germany’s Ramstein Air Force base, which has been grounded by the ash cloud, soldiers are now being transported to the naval base in Rota, Spain. The resulting re-routing to get troops to Rota means an additional eight hours of flight back to the United States, the Pentagon said. | 04/19/10 15:42:40 By - Nancy A. Youssef

U.N. report: Pakistan failed to protect Bhutto from threats

The former military regime of Pakistan failed to protect the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto despite its knowledge of the numerous threats she faced, and Pakistani intelligence agencies and government officials "severely hampered" an official investigation into her 2007 assassination, investigators charged Thursday. | 04/16/10 12:36:12 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Civilian casualties pose growing threat to war on terrorism

At least 71 villagers were killed by a misdirected air strike against suspected extremists in Pakistan's tribal zone, locals claimed Tuesday. The strike underscored the difficulties that the U.S. and its allies face in fighting militants who intermingle with innocent civilians, while grappling with poor intelligence and trying to win popular and political support. | 04/13/10 10:42:47 By - Saeed Shah and Nancy A. Youssef

U.S. military aims to save more civilian lives in Afghanistan

Amid renewed outrage over the conduct of American forces overseas, the U.S. military is preparing to broaden the scope of battlefield rules in another attempt to better protect innocent Afghan lives. | 04/09/10 18:43:13 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Idaho representative calls for prisoner exchange for captured soldier in Afghanistan

The U.S. government should work out a prisoner trade with the terrorist group holding Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey hostage, Rep. Walt Minnick, D-Idaho, said Thursday. | 04/09/10 16:11:32 By - Kathleen Kreller

Despite reports of progress, Afghan women still struggle

The numbers tell an upbeat story about efforts to empower and protect women in Afghanistan. However, the reality is much grimmer. | 04/06/10 17:01:54 By - Sananda Sahoo

Pakistani chief justice's battle with Zardari threatens stability

As a far-reaching constitutional measure aimed at bolstering democracy was tabled in Pakistan's Parliament Friday, an escalating battle between U.S.-backed President Asif Ali Zardari and the country's chief justice threatens the political stability of a key American ally in the war on Islamic extremism. | 04/02/10 17:22:24 By - Saeed Shah

For Marines, Marjah market is battleground for Afghans' trust

If Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's strategy for winning the eight-year-old war by regaining the trust of wary Afghans is going to be a success, the 150 stalls around the market in Marjah is one place where it must take root.In the weeks since the Marines seized control of Marjah from the Taliban, the Marines have focused on winning the goodwill of the merchants at the ragtag Koru market outside their Marine outpost. | 04/01/10 18:18:12 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Pakistani general: Al Qaida-Taliban haven to be cleared by June

The Pakistani army has launched a military operation to clear insurgents from North Waziristan — long a haven for al Qaida and the Afghan Taliban — and hopes to wind up offensive actions in all its tribal areas by June, according to the Pakistani general who's in charge of the special paramilitary force for the area. | 03/31/10 17:35:04 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan parliament rejects Karzai takeover of vote panel

In another pointed challenge to President Hamid Karzai, Afghan lawmakers Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected his attempts to take control of the independent election panel that uncovered widespread fraud in last year's presidential vote. | 03/31/10 17:22:32 By - Dion Nissenbaum

U.S.-led campaign in Kandahar will focus on political leaders

After a smoother-than-expected military operation to take the southern Afghan town of Marjah from the Taliban, the U.S. military is aiming to quash Taliban resistance in the Islamist group's spiritual home of Kandahar by the fall, two senior NATO officials said Tuesday. | 03/30/10 17:50:21 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Afghan soldiers way below standard, exasperated Marines say

If the U.S. Marines at Combat Outpost Turbett have any problems with their Afghan colleagues, they're with the Afghan soldiers who followed them into battle against Taliban fighters, not with the elite police officers who've stepped in to help fill the security vacuum. | 03/24/10 18:24:15 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Top U.S. general in Afghanistan gives order: Close TGI Friday's

By American standards, the boardwalk at Kandahar Airfield isn't much to write home about. There's no roller coaster, mirror maze or carousel with unicorns. There's no cotton candy to buy, no candied apples, and no annoying mimes trying to get out of imaginary boxes. But this little square of Western culture in the Taliban heartland has served for years as a rare oasis for international forces embroiled in the ongoing Afghan war. | 03/24/10 16:34:52 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Missile strike kills militant with role in CIA bombing

An al Qaida militant suspected of playing a key role in a suicide bombing at a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan died last week in Pakistan, apparently in a retaliatory missile strike by a CIA drone, a U.S. counterterrorism official said Wednesday. The death of Hussein al Yemeni was the latest blow to al Qaida's leadership from stepped up U.S. drone attacks inside Pakistan's tribal area following the Dec. 30 suicide bombing. | 03/17/10 20:03:15 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Five Americans arrested in Pakistan charged, allege abuse

Five American students caught in Pakistan last year were charged Wednesday with terrorism-related offenses, and they'll face a full trial and the prospect of a jail sentence. The men alleged that Pakistani police had tortured them. | 03/17/10 11:47:34 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan poppy harvest is next challenge for U.S. Marines

U.S. Marine Sgt. Brad Vandehei stood on the edge of the small opium poppy field that serves as a central helicopter landing zone for the new military compound that's rising nearby. | 03/16/10 15:55:40 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Knocked out of power in Afghan town, Taliban turn to intimidation

Two weeks after the U.S.-led forces swiftly seized control of this long-standing insurgent stronghold, Taliban forces are posing a new threat by menacing, beating and even beheading local residents who cooperate with the emerging Afghan government, according to Afghan and American officials. | 03/14/10 18:25:40 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Suicide bombers strike Pakistani market, killing at least 43

In the fifth terrorist attack this week in Pakistan, extremists set off twin suicide bombs Friday in the eastern city of Lahore, killing at least 43 people, a reminder of the continued threat to the country despite an overall fall in violence. | 03/12/10 15:16:04 By - Saeed Shah

2 bombings hit busy Pakistani market in Lahore

In the fifth terrorist attack this week in Pakistan, extremists set off twin suicide bombs Friday in the eastern city of Lahore, killing at least 43 people, a reminder of the continued threat to the country despite an overall fall in violence. The bloodiest strike in Pakistan this year saw twin attackers detonate themselves in a busy market in a high-security military district in Lahore. | 03/12/10 06:38:26 By - Saeed Shah

U.S. government knows of no al Qaida arrest in Pakistan

Despite numerous news reports that Pakistan has arrested an American al Qaida operative in the port city of Karachi, the U.S. government is unaware that anyone affiliated with the terrorist network, American or otherwise, has been captured in Pakistan recently, U.S. officials said Monday. | 03/08/10 19:20:07 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Holbrooke's Harvard comments slammed in Afghanistan

Obama special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke told a Harvard audience that every Pashutn Afghan has a family member or friend in the Taliban. The comment's gotten little attention in the U.S., but angered Afghan officials. On Monday in Kabul, Defense Secretary Robert Gates disavowed it. | 03/08/10 14:46:54 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Pakistan says it's arrested al Qaida's American mouthpiece

Pakistani officials Sunday said they'd arrested the American face of al Qaida, a key militant propagandist, but have they confused him with a lesser known American-born Islamic militant? | 03/07/10 18:55:49 By - Saeed Shah

U.S., Afghan officials hope insurgent feud signals split

The Taliban sought to downplay the fighting and a Hezb-i-Islami spokesman said his group and the Taliban must fight "the same occupiers," U.S. and Afghan officials hope it signals a split in the insurgency. | 03/07/10 14:48:53 By - Dion Nissenbaum and Nooruddin Bakhshi

UN envoy says Afghan strategy is too 'military-driven'

As he wrapped up his two-year tenure as the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide warned that without more political progress, Afghanistan will become unmanageable. | 03/06/10 14:48:55 By - Dion Nissenbaum

Problems with civilian 'surge' could upset Afghan timetable

The Obama administration's "surge" of U.S. civilian officials and experts into Afghanistan is beset by a shortage of qualified personnel, a lack of housing and other problems that could disrupt its timetable for turning over full control of the country to the Afghan government, a new report Friday says. | 03/05/10 18:46:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Camp Lejeune Marines taking brunt of Helmand casualties

In little more than a week, nine of the 12 Marines killed in action in Helmand Province — the most dangerous place for U.S. troops — came from Camp Lejeune. | 02/23/10 13:55:12 By - Jay Price

Slain medic's parents blast Army missteps in deadly ambush

The 500-page report, two inches thick, rests on the table in Nikki Freitas' home. She can't bring herself to read it word for word, to anguish over every last detail of how her son, 22-year-old Navy Petty Officer James Layton, died in an ambush last September in Afghanistan's Ganjgal Valley. | 02/20/10 22:07:16 By - Jeff Jardine

With more arrests, Pakistan distances itself from Taliban

Pakistan's latest arrests of senior Afghan Taliban figures and al Qaida operatives have raised the prospect that Islamabad has begun a major strategic shift away from backing its favorite Afghan militants. Analysts cautioned, however that Pakistan's aim may be to apply just enough pressure to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table on terms acceptable to Islamabad. | 02/18/10 18:15:12 By - Saeed Shah

Officers blamed in Afghan ambush that killed 5 U.S. troops

An official investigation into a Sept. 8 ambush in Afghanistan offers a scathing assessment. Senior officers were absent, and those left behind were ineffective. The five Americans suffered their fatal wounds during more than an hour when they had no air support. A helicopter gunship only minutes away wasn't dispatched because the request hadn't come through brigade headquarters. Three unidentified officers received official reprimands. | 02/17/10 19:39:53 By - Jonathan S. Landay

IEDs lurk as biggest threat in U.S.-led Afghan offensive

Most of the bombs planted by retreating Taliban fighters around the town of Marjah, the focus of the current U.S.-led military offensive in southern Afghanistan, remain hidden threats to soldiers and civilians, military officers and Afghan officials said Wednesday. | 02/17/10 15:32:00 By - Saeed Shah

Arrest of No. 2 may throw Taliban, peace talks into disarray

The arrest of the second-ranking Taliban leader last week in Pakistan is likely to throw the Islamist movement into disarray and disrupt the Taliban military campaign, and it could mark a strategic U-turn for the government in Islamabad, former Taliban and Western analysts said Tuesday. | 02/16/10 18:46:00 By - Saeed Shah

Afghanistan's No. 2 Taliban leader captured in Pakistan

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was seized in Karachi in a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation last week, sources said. As the second in command of the Taliban, he is believed to have been the architect of the Taliban's military operations. Officials hoped he might help lead them to Mullah Omar, the Taliban founder and spiritual leader who hasn't been seen since 2001. | 02/16/10 02:51:53 By - Saeed Shah

Taliban reportedly held civilian hostages when U.S. rockets hit

Amid intelligence reports alleging that Taliban insurgents are holding civilians as hostages, American and Afghan forces moved cautiously through the Taliban stronghold of Marjah on Monday as they pressed the biggest offensive since the U.S. landed troops in Afghanistan more than eight years ago. | 02/15/10 17:56:00 By - Saeed Shah

U.S. apologizes for killing of 12 Afghan civilians

Twelve Afghan civilians died Sunday after U.S. rockets mistakenly hit a house during the much-trumpeted offensive to clear the last Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, a loss of life that is likely to seriously undermine the operation and the renewed American-led mission to win the trust of the population. | 02/14/10 14:53:00 By - Saeed Shah

Surprise tactic in Afghanistan offensive befuddles Taliban

U.S. Marines and Afghan forces airlifted over Taliban-laid minefields into the center of Marjah town Saturday, apparently surprising the insurgents and taking strategic positions from them, according to military officials. The first day of the offensive saw only sporadic fighting. | 02/13/10 17:04:00 By - Saeed Shah and Janan Zerak

Casualties mount in Afghan campaign against Taliban

The massive Marine-led offensive in southern Afghanistan against the last remaining Taliban stronghold in Helmand province claimed the first two casualties from coalition forces. | 02/13/10 11:17:00 By - Saeed Shah

U.S., Afghan forces begin assault in Helmand Province

U.S. forces opened a major offensive in southern Afghanistan early Saturday, sending thousands of U.S. Marines and Afghan and British soldiers against a Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, the largest such operation since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001. | 02/12/10 18:42:00 By - Saeed Shah

U.S.-led offensive under way in southern Afghanistan

A U.S.-led force unleashed a major offensive in southern Afghanistan early Saturday, with thousands of Marines, together with Afghan and British soldiers, going into battle against a Taliban stronghold, according to reports. | 02/12/10 17:24:00 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan government in tentative talks with insurgent leader

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of Afghanistan's most brutal Islamist warlords, is holding tentative peace talks with the government of Afghanistan that could cause a split in the Taliban-led insurgency, Afghan politicians in Kabul said Wednesday. Hekmatyar's terms are softer than the Taliban's demand that U.S. and other foreign troops leave Afghanistan before peace talks can begin. Hekmatyar would allow international forces to remain in the country for 18 months. | 02/10/10 18:50:00 By - Saeed Shah

As Afghan assault looms, many civilians haven't fled

As U.S.-led coalition troops prepare for a long-awaited offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, few civilians have managed to escape the town at the center of the operation, raising the risk of civilian casualties that could undermine the Obama administration's military strategy for the country. | 02/09/10 17:55:00 By - Saeed Shah

Pharmacist drives Humvee in Afghanistan making deliveries

Every day for six months, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Thompson, 40, wore a flak vest, Army fatigues and carried a weapon when he went to work at a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan. You could describe his job as combat pharmacist. | 02/09/10 11:42:36 By - Jennifer A, Bowen

Afghan drug capital is U.S. target in coming offensive

The U.S.-led offensive that's expected to start soon in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province will be a battle not only against the Taliban but also against an insurgent-backed narcotics trade that provides a livelihood for thousands of residents. | 02/08/10 17:52:00 By - Saeed Shah

U.S.: We'll talk only to Taliban who've cut ties with al Qaida

At a security conference in Munich this weekend, U.S. and British officials said the U.S. has had no direct contact with the Taliban. But U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said there would be no contradiction in attacking the Taliban and conducting negotiations at the same time. | 02/08/10 14:56:00 By - Robert Marquand

Why are U.S., allies telling Taliban about coming offensive?

Military operations usually are intended to catch the enemy off guard, but for weeks U.S. and allied officials have been telling reporters about their forthcoming assault on Marjah, a Taliban-held town of 80,000. The unusual approach, according to U.S. and British commanders, is intended to persuade Marjah's civilian population to leave or turn against the Taliban, while pressuring the estimated 2,000 insurgents to flee the town or switch sides. | 02/05/10 19:40:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Saeed Shah

Excerpts of CIA director Panetta's remarks

The White House released the following excerpts from remarks by CIA Director Leon E. Panetta made Friday at the memorial service for seven CIA workers killed in Afghanistan. | 02/05/10 16:51:21 By -

Obama's remarks at CIA memorial service

The following transcript of President Barack Obama's remarks at a memorial service for seven CIA workers killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan was released by the White House on Friday. | 02/05/10 16:41:14 By -

Report: 'No strategic value' to Afghan outpost where 8 died

A U.S. military investigation into a battle last October in eastern Afghanistan that cost eight American soldiers their lives has concluded that the small outpost was worthless, the troops there didn't understand their mission, and intelligence and air support were tied up elsewhere in the province. | 02/05/10 15:40:00 By - John Walcott and Jonathan S. Landay

Obama tells CIA 'win this war' at service for 7 killed in Afghanistan

Security was tight this morning around the CIA's suburban Washington headquarters as President Barack Obama joined agency leaders and personnel for a memorial service for the five CIA officers and two contractors who were killed by a suicide bomber in Khost, Afghanistan, on Dec. 30. | 02/05/10 11:20:41 By - Jonathan S. Landay

U.S. plan to win Afghanistan tribe by tribe is risky

U.S. officials put a lot of hope last year in Haji Rashid, an up-and-coming community leader in the Zormat district of Afghanistan. They considered Rashid a unifying figure capable of bringing together about a dozen tribes to support the Afghan government. Their hopes collapsed, however, when Rashid was kidnapped, tortured, mutilated and murdered. | 02/04/10 13:49:00 By - Thomas L. Day

Taliban attack brings focus on low-key U.S. Pakistan mission

Three American soliders were killed and two were wounded Wednesday in troubled northwestern Pakistan when a roadside bomb exploded. The deaths, the first known U.S. military casualties in Pakistan since 1979, brought unwanted attention to the small U.S. troop presence that American officials have sought to downplay so as not to feed anti-American sentiment. | 02/03/10 16:35:00 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan government pursues talks with Taliban leaders

Despite U.S. misgivings, Afghan President Hamid Karzai will push his initiative for talks with Taliban leaders during a visit to Saudi Arabia this week, and his top adviser on the reconciliation process with the insurgents said in an interview Monday that the country must learn to forgive the extremist group. | 02/01/10 15:58:00 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistan Islamist tied to CIA bombing believed dead

Hakimullah Mehsud was Pakistan's most wanted man and a top target for the U.S — especially after he appeared in a video with the Jordanian suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees Dec. 30 at an Afghan outpost known as FOB Chapman. He was the target of two drone strikes, one on Jan. 14 and the other, Jan. 17 | 01/31/10 18:06:00 By - Roy Gutman and Saeed Shah

Few see reason to take rumors of Taliban talks seriously

In the past week, there's been much discussion of possible talks with the Taliban. Afghan parliament members held meetings in the Maldives, a U.N. official met apparently with an intermediary in Dubai, and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai asked for Saudi help in setting something up. But those who know the Taliban best say there's no authorization for talks. | 01/30/10 15:56:00 By - Roy Gutman and Saeed Shah

Video: Afghan prisoner issue creates political crisis in Canada

The Real News Network takes a look at Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to shut down Parliament, allegedly to postpone an inquiry into the mistreatment of Afghan prisoners by the Canadian armed forces. | 01/29/10 20:20:59 By -

New U.S. air strategy in Afghanistan: First, do no harm

Six months after Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S commander in Afghanistan, issued a tactical directive urging troops to walk away from a fight rather than risk killing civilians, the Air Force is engaging in a campaign of restraint. Instead of air strikes, airmen increasingly are searching for places they can drop bombs that can be heard and felt, but where they're unlikely to damage buildings or hurt people. | 01/29/10 17:23:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Afghan legislators hold tentative peace talks with insurgents

Traveling at their own expense, Afghan parliamentarians held preliminary peace talks over the weekend with members of an insurgent faction that's trying to overthrow the government, participants said Thursday. | 01/28/10 18:03:00 By - Roy Gutman

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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.

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