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President Obama makes no effort to conceal irritation when the first question he's asked in Asia is about what's taking him so long on Afghanistan. Photo: AP SHANGHAI, China – President Barack Obama made no effort to conceal his irritation when his press corps used the first question of his maiden Far East trip to ask what was taking him so long on Afghanistan. Jennifer Loven of The Associated Press had asked: “Can you explain to people watching and criticizing your deliberations what piece of information you're still lacking to make that call.” “With respect to Afghanistan, Jennifer,” the...

Taliban -led insurgents in Afghanistan have devised ways to cripple and even destroy the expensive armored vehicles that offer U.S. forces the best protection against roadside bombs by using increasingly large explosive charges and rocket-propelled grenades, according to U.S. soldiers and defense officials. At least eight American troops have been killed this year in attacks on so-called Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, and 40 more have been wounded, said a senior U.S. military official who, like others interviewed on the issue, declined to be further identified because of the issue's sensitivity. The insurgents' success in attacking the hulking machines, which...

ISLAMABAD – A strong earthquake hit Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountains Thursday, shaking large areas of the country and neighboring Pakistan, officials said. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the quake, which struck at 10:14 p.m. (1744 GMT) and was centered in a remote part of the Hindu Kush mountains, about 160 miles (250 kilometers) north of Kabul. Given the area's isolation it could take many hours for such reports to emerge. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.0, though Pakistani officials said it was 6.1. Tremors were felt in Kabul,...

KABUL (AFP) – Taliban gunmen stormed a UN guesthouse in Kabul Wednesday, killing at least eight people in a suicide attack as the Islamist militia signalled a bloody countdown to new Afghan elections next week. President Hamid Karzai ordered an urgent security upgrade for international organisations after the rampage, which left at least five expatriate UN staff dead in the worst assault on the world body's Afghanistan mission since 2001. The Obama administration and UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack, which the Afghan defence ministry said was the work of Pakistani Taliban dressed as police who struck the UN-approved...

The drama surrounding the Afghan elections continues to remain fluid. Afghanistan's election commission Tuesday ordered a Nov. 7 runoff in the disputed presidential poll after a U.N.-led investigation voided thousands of fraudulent ballots, dropping incumbent Hamid Karzai's votes below 50 percent of the total.Karzai accepted the ruling by the commission "legitimate, legal and constitutional," agreeing to a second round vote.

Hamid Karzai Refuses To Accept Being Stripped Of Afghanistan Election Win Afghanistan has been thrown into crisis after Hamid Karzai refused to accept the results of a fraud inquiry which denied him victory in the presidential election. By Ben Farmer in Kabul 19 Oct 2009 President Barack Obama's aides said it would be 'reckless' for him to commit more troops to Afghanistan until there is a 'true partner' to work with in Kabul, in veiled criticism of Hamid Karzai A two-month investigation into allegations of widespread ballot-stuffing by supporters took his share of the vote from 55 per cent to...

KABUL (Reuters) – NATO's top defense officials will examine proposals Saturday for a big troop surge to contain Afghanistan's escalating insurgency but any such move hinges on a decision by the U.S. president, NATO military officials said. The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has recommended sending at least 40,000 additional troops and trainers as part of a beefed-up counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, something being considered by the administration of President Barack Obama. Military representatives on NATO's Military Committee, who provide assessments for their political masters, met McChrystal on a three-day visit to Afghanistan that ended...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. veterans criticized President Barack Obama's lengthy review of Afghan war strategy, saying on Thursday the drawn-out debate in Washington was a direct threat to troops and the nation's defense. The head of Veterans of Foreign Wars, a group representing 1.5 million former soldiers, issued a tersely worded statement urging Obama to follow the advice of his military commanders, who want more troops for the eight-year war. "The extremists are sensing weakness and indecision within the U.S. government, which plays into their hands," said Thomas J. Tradewell Sr., a Vietnam veteran and head of VFW. This was...

After five intense meetings on his war-fighting strategy in Afghanistan, President Obama is finished gathering data and is now "in the decision-making phase," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told Fox News. "We have finished at the broad landscape level," Gibbs said. "We are in the decision-making phase now." Gibbs said exhaustive Situation Room briefings on future U.S. troops levels, training of Afghan Army and Police forces, civilian assistance and the political stability and legitimacy of President Hamid Karzai's government are largely complete. "The meetings that go now will flow to the decision-making phase," Gibbs said. "All the discussions so...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Pentagon said on Tuesday it had made no secret about the expanding US force in Afghanistan, despite a report suggesting troop numbers had been downplayed by the Obama administration. The Defense Department had consistently said the number of US forces would reach 68,000 by the end of the year, a Pentagon spokesman said. "Nothing's missing. Nothing's hidden," Colonel Dave Lapan told reporters. His comments came after the Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Obama had approved the deployment of 13,000 troops beyond the 21,000 he announced publicly in March. But at least half of those 13,000...

The Obama administration is deep in deliberations over whether to build on its counterinsurgency strategy with thousands more troops in Afghanistan or focus more on taking out top Al Qaeda targets, particularly in Pakistan. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is joining Senate Republicans in calling for the president to approve the request for more troops.

KABUL – Thousands of foreign fighters have poured into Afghanistan to bolster the Taliban insurgency, the country's defense minister said Saturday as he called for more international troops. The remarks come as the U.S. debates whether to substantially increase its forces in Afghanistan or to conduct a more limited campaign focused on targeting al-Qaida figures — most of whom are believed to be in neighboring Pakistan. The minister's comments hit on a key worry of the United States — that not sending enough troops to Afghanistan will open the door back up to al-Qaida. They also suggest that the Afghan...

President Bush made his speech in the aftermath of 9/11 about a week afterwards. In the week between the attacks and his speech, there was a bit of debate about one specific issue. That issue was whether or not we were going to include the Taliban in our list of enemies for destruction along with Al Qaeda. I say there was just a bit of debate because most people were in agreement that the Taliban were no less responsible for 9/11 than Al Qaeda itself. Then, George Bush said this in his speech a week after 9/11. we will make...

No foolin’. They’re looking for any way they can to avoid giving McChrystal the troops he says he needs to secure the country, so they’ve come up with a way out. If the people we’ve been fighting for eight years aren’t the enemy, then the country no longer needs to be secured from them, does it?

ack Kelly recently had this now famous assertion that he says were told to him by two sources from Nicholas Sarkozy about President Obama.

The Afghan Taliban pose no threat to the West but will continue their fight against occupying foreign forces, they said on Wednesday, the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion that removed them from power. U.S.-led forces with the help of Afghan groups overthrew the Taliban government during a five week battle which started on October 7, 2001, after the militants refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders wanted by Washington for the September 11 attacks on America. "We had and have no plan of harming countries of the world, including those in Europe ... our goal is the independence of...

Since first invading Afghanistan nearly a decade ago, America set one primary goal: Eliminate al Qaeda's safe haven. Today, intelligence and military officials say they've severely constrained al Qaeda's ability to operate there and in Pakistan -- and that's reshaping the debate over U.S. strategy in the region. *** A key point of contention in President Barack Obama's review of war strategy is the ability of al Qaeda to reconstitute in Afghanistan.

<p>Children in a school in Germany had a day to remember this week when four pupils found around 15,000 euros (22,000 dollars) and then handed it out to their friends in the playground, police said Friday.</p> <p>The four, two boys and two girls aged between 10 and 13, found the bundle of cash stuffed in a dirty brown envelope on the way into their school in Frankfurt on Tuesday morning.</p>

Coalition forces in Afghanistan are going to have to adopt a "dramatically different" strategy to ensure success, the top US general there says. In his first speech since submitting a report calling for more troops, Gen Stanley McChrystal also said the operation had been "under-resourced". The success of the military operation could not be taken for granted in the face of a growing insurgency, he said. Meanwhile, a Nato strike in Helmand has killed at least six civilians. Women and children are believed to be among the dead. Nato has said it will investigate the incident. It said it had...

At its conclusion, Obama reminded the crowd that he hadn't reached a decision and that his war council should return twice next week with more details and ideas, the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations. The talks revealed the emerging fault lines within the administration, with military commanders solidly behind the request for additional troops and other key officials divided. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and special Afghan and Pakistan envoy Richard Holbrooke appeared to be leaning toward supporting a troop increase, the official said. White House chief of staff Rahm...

The White House unexpectedly decided to review its strategy in Afghanistan after a series of recent setbacks in the war, including allegations of fraud following last month's presidential elections and surging violence throughout the country. It begins just days after Gen. McChrystal submitted his request for as many as 40,000 additional troops to the Pentagon. Some in the administration, notably Biden, have argued for a smaller military footprint and a tighter focus on counterterrorism as the best way forward. Advocates of such a shift point to the effective use of Predator drone strikes to kill Taliban leaders in Pakistan. Two...

Washington - US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the war in Afghanistan was not purely an "American battle" but was a broader Nato mission, as he met the western alliance's chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen. "This is not a American battle, this is a Nato mission," Obama told reporters after the Oval Office meeting, which comes as he launches a series of intense talks on whether to send more US soldiers to the Afghan war.

DEH-E BAGH, AFGHANISTAN–Canada's top soldier in Afghanistan pulled no punches at a hastily called meeting with Afghan village elders Monday after a roadside bomb blast sent another Canadian soldier to hospital. Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance, the commander of Task Force Kandahar, was on his way to the model village of Deh-e-Bagh in the Dand district southwest of Kandahar city when shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade struck one of the vehicles in his convoy.

WASHINGTON — President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who spoke Tuesday in National Harbor, Md., wants to scale back troops in Afghanistan. The options under review are part of what administration officials described as a wholesale reconsideration of a strategy the president announced with fanfare just six months ago. Two new intelligence reports are being conducted to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will probably need to deploy more troops to Afghanistan despite almost doubling the size of its force there this year, the top U.S. military officer said on Tuesday. The assessment by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the clearest signal yet that commanders will tell President Barack Obama in the coming weeks that they need extra forces to defeat Taliban insurgents. "A properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces. And, without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people and to the development of...

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is preparing new rules that would give hundreds of prisoners being held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan the right to challenge their detentions, according to published reports. The guidelines would for the first time allow about 600 prisoners held at an American-run prison at the Bagram Air Base to call witnesses and submit evidence in their defense, The Washington Post and New York Times reported in stories Saturday on the Web.

Five months ago, immediately after Barack Obama had increased the number of American troops stationed in Afghanistan to subdue the rising Taliban insurgencies there, the President told CBS’s 60 Minutes that it was vital for the U.S. to have a clearly defined exit strategy for those troops. At the time, U.S. commanders said that as many as 30,000 additional troops were needed to overcome a stalemate in parts of Afghanistan. Obama chose to send 17,000. Five months later, the situation in Afghanistan continues to worsen, according to military brass. Although Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer on Sunday described the situation in Afghanistan as deteriorating but said the new commander on the ground had not yet requested additional troops. "I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I've said that over the past couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated, in their tactics," said Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's national security adviser did not rule adding more U.S. forces in Afghanistan to help turn around a war that he said on Sunday is not now in crisis. James Jones, a retired Marine general with experience in Afghanistan, said the United States will know "by the end of next year" whether the revamped war plan Obama announced in March is taking hold. The administration is redefining how it will measure progress, with new benchmarks that reflect a redrawn strategy. An outline is expected next month.

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. service member was killed as the deadliest month for foreign troops in the Afghanistan war drew to a close, the U.S. military said on Friday, with commanders vowing to continue the fight despite the toll. The death in southern Afghanistan brought to 40 the number of U.S. troops killed in July, by far the heaviest monthly toll in the 8-year-old war. The worst previous month for U.S. forces was in September 2008, when 26 were killed.

Indonesia has found 15 of the 74 Afghan migrants who went missing in treacherous waters en route to Australia, according to police. The asylum seekers, who have been missing since Wednesday, are being held by police on Sumbawa island, Bima city police chief Tjatur Abrianto said. "We found them yesterday afternoon at the seaport and terminal," Abrianto said. "They didn't try to fight us or run away.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama has ordered his national security team to investigate reports that U.S. allies were responsible for the deaths of as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners of war in Afghanistan. Obama told CNN in an interview that aired Sunday that if the United States violated international norms, he wants to know about it. He also says he will make a decision how to proceed after he has all the facts

Our Darkest Day In War On Taliban: Eight Soldiers Killed As Afghan Death Toll Overtakes Number Of Troops Lost In Iraq By DAVID WILLIAMS and MATTHEW HICKLEY 11th July 2009 Eight British soldiers lost their lives with several more left critically wounded yesterday. Five died when a foot patrol was trapped in a Taliban ambush and blown up by a booby-trap bomb - the highest death toll from a single attack since the war began. The three others died in separate incidents on what was the darkest day of the war in Afghanistan. [Pic in URL] (From left) L/Cpl David...

KABUL — A Democratic Party strategist who helped Bill Clinton get into the White House is now assisting a former Afghan finance minister in his campaign to unseat President Hamid Karzai in upcoming elections. James Carville said he joined the team of Ashraf Ghani, also a former World Bank official, so Afghans had a viable choice in the Aug. 20 poll.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia will grant President Barack Obama permission next week to ship U.S. weapons supplies across its territory, or through its airspace, en route to Afghanistan, sources on both sides told Reuters on Saturday. The transit deal will open up an important corridor for the United States as it steps up its Afghan war against Taliban insurgents by sending in more troops. Routes via Pakistan have come under attack by militants. It will be one of the main agreements signed during Obama's Moscow summit next week with Kremlin chief Dmitry Medvedev, the sources said. "The agreement will include...

NAWA, Afghanistan – Taliban militants were nowhere in sight as the columns of U.S. Marines walked a third straight day across southern Afghanistan. But the desert heat proved an enemy in its own right, with several troops falling victim Saturday to temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The Marines carry 50-100 pounds (23-45 kilograms) on their backs. But because they are marching through farmland on foot, they can't carry nearly as much water as their thirst demands. Few even realized the date was July 4, ... a world away from the strenuous task Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine...

LOWER HELMAND RIVER VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN (Reuters) – U.S. Marines launched a helicopter assault early on Thursday in the lower Helmand river valley in southern Afghanistan, spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said. A Reuters correspondent in the valley saw flares in the sky over the town of Nawa, south of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. The valley of irrigated wheat and opium fields along the Helmand river is largely in the hands of Taliban fighters who have resisted British-led NATO forces for years. The United States has sent 8,500 Marines to Helmand province in the last two months, the largest wave of...

KABUL – The top U.S. general in Afghanistan will soon formally order U.S. and NATO forces to break away from fights with militants hiding in Afghan houses so the battles do not kill civilians, a U.S. official said Monday.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani forces used aircraft and artillery on Sunday as they stepped up an assault aimed at eliminating Pakistani Taliban commander Baituallah Mehsud. Security forces have secured much of the scenic Swat Valley, northwest of Islamabad, in the past six weeks and the military plans to extend its offensive to al Qaeda ally Mehsud, holed up in the South Waziristan region near the Afghan border. The military action came after Taliban gains raised fears for the future of nuclear-armed Pakistan, a vital ally for the United States as it strives to defeat al Qaeda and stabilize Afghanistan....

KABUL – British forces killed an alleged Taliban leader in southern Afghanistan, U.K. and Afghan officials said Tuesday, in what they claimed was a major victory against the insurgency there. Mullah Mansur was killed in a strike by helicopters in Helmand province, the British defense ministry said. Helmand government spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said Mansur was the aviation minister in the Taliban regime that was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Another 98 Afghan girls were rushed to hospital Tuesday in the latest in a spate of mysterious poisonings to hit three schools north of Kabul in a fortnight, officials said. The children fell ill as they entered the school building in the small town of Mahmud Raqi, about 70 kilometres north of the capital, teachers and students told AFP. 'There was a strange smell and some students fainted, others felt sick,' said a teacher named only Humaira. Soon nearly all the students at the Aftabaki Girls High School felt ill, she told AFP. A doctor dealing with the case said...

Afghanistan's only known pig has been quarantined because of fears over swine flu, officials from Kabul Zoo say. The pig, a curiosity in a country where pork products are illegal, lives at the zoo, where he had previously enjoyed grazing next to deer and goats. However visitors expressed fears that the animal could be carrying the H1N1 virus and he was moved into isolation. The director of the zoo, Aziz Gul Saqib, says the pig, whose name is Khanzir, is strong and healthy. Speaking to the BBC World Service, Mr Saqib says: "The only reason we moved him was because...

KABUL – President Hamid Karzai chose a powerful warlord accused of rights abuses as one of his vice presidential running mates on Monday, hours before leaving for meetings in Washington with President Barack Obama and Pakistan's president. The selection of Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a top commander in the militant group Jamiat-e-Islami during Afghanistan's 1990s civil war, drew immediate criticism from human rights groups.

The Pakistani Taliban, even while continuing their penetration of central Pakistan, have begun mobilizing fresh recruits from all over the country to go help their Afghan Taliban brothers resist the newly arriving Western troops. The Taliban now control the tribal regions of Pakistan, huge sections of the Swat Valley and have just consolidated their control over the district of Buner, just 60 miles from Islamabad...(Snip) Pakistan was one of only two nations on earth that recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government (the other being Osama's home country of Saudi Arabia)...(Snip) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made headlines last weekend...

There is growing evidence that battle-hardened extremists are filtering out of safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and into East Africa, bringing sophisticated terrorist tactics that include suicide attacks. The alarming shift, according to U.S. military and counterterrorism officials, fuels concern that Somalia is increasingly on a path to become the next Afghanistan — a sanctuary where al-Qaida-linked groups could train and plan their threatened attacks against the western world. So far, officials say the number of foreign fighters who have moved from southwest Asia and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to the Horn of Africa is small, perhaps two to...

Women protesting in Kabul against a controversial new law were pelted with stones, jostled and spat on today as they held what is believed to be the first public demonstration calling for equal rights for women in recent Afghan history. The protest by about 200 women called for amendment of the controversial Shia Family Law, passed last month by the Afghan Parliament, and enforcement of article 22 of the Afghan constitution, which gives equal rights to men and women. It provoked a furious reaction from local men and a mob quickly surrounded the protesters amid violent scenes close to the...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is seeking $83.4 billion for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, pressing for a war supplemental spending bill like the ones he repeatedly voted against when he was senator and George W. Bush was president. Obama's request would push the costs of the two wars to almost $1 trillion since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service. The additional money would cover operations into the fall. ... Obama was a harsh critic of the Iraq war as a candidate, a stance .. helped him secure his party's nomination. He...

Abdullah laughs like any other 11-year-old, but he is no schoolboy. He is being touted as the world's youngest terrorist following his arrest. Charged with carrying explosives, Abdullah is suspected of being a potential suicide bomber and is Afghanistan's youngest prisoner, reports the Mirror. Abdullah is an orphan and learned the principles of jihad at a religious school. His weapon of choice was the Kalashnikov. He says he also knows the difference between suicide and which God forbade, and sacrifice, which is what you become if you blow yourself up, killing the non-Muslims who want to kill your family.

Roman police find sewer children The children were found in sewers close to railway stations Italian police have found more than 100 immigrants, including 24 Afghan children, living in the sewer system beneath railway stations in Rome. The children range in age from 10 to 15 years and are now being looked after by the city's social services. They were found when the railway police followed up reports of children living near the city's stations. The police say they do not speak Italian and broke into the sewers by removing manhole covers. The charity Save the Children Italy says that...

Whether it was the 9/11 tragedy, the Mumbai attacks or the Lahore incident involving the Sri Lankan cricket team, the whole world has started paying a rather high price for abandoning Afghanistan in the late 1980s. An even higher price is still being paid to fight religious extremism with primarily military means. After the Soviets retreated from Afghanistan in 1989, the United States left war-torn Afghanistan to the whims of nature and local warlords. This led to the rise of the Taliban, the return of Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan, and consequently to the Al Qaeda leadership taking sanctuary in...