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KABUL - Thousands of U.S., British and Afghan troops are poised to launch the biggest offensive of the war in Afghanistan in a test of the Obama administration's new counterinsurgency strategy. 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 and drug-trafficking hub in southern poppy-growing Helmand province.

Soldiers from AustraliaÂ’s Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) conduct a medical clinic (MEDCAP) for the Chenartu villagers while more than 150 people gather for a shura.(Photo courtesy Australian Government Department of Defence) Courtesy Australian Government Department of DefenceThe Australian Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) with their Afghan partner force have facilitated a major gathering (shura) of village elders and religious leaders in Chenartu, north-east of Tarin Kowt, as part of their current focus on reaching out to Afghan communities across Uruzgan Province. During the meeting, village leaders and representatives were consulted to gain an understanding from the community of their...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2010 – Noting signs that the new strategy in Afghanistan “is beginning to bear fruit,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates also said during an interview aired last night that the effort to build up Iraq’s security forces and move forward with the U.S. drawdown plan there remains on track. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates speaks with Greta Van Susteren, host of the Fox News program "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren," during an interview in Rome, Feb. 7, 2010. DoD photo by Cherie Cullen  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Gates spoke with Fox News Channel’s...

KABUL—The fledgling Afghan National Army has been created from scratch by the U.S. and its allies. But, at least in its senior ranks, it increasingly resembles an Afghan army of old—one the U.S. helped rout two decades ago. The Afghan government is dominated by former mujahedeen guerrillas; both the minister of defense and the army chief of staff are former anti-Soviet insurgents. Most ANA generals and colonels appointed to serve just below them, however, are veterans of the Soviet-built Afghan military that hunted these insurgents through the 1980s. (continued)

The United States Marines, America’s best and bravest, are about to land in the Town of Marja, southern Afghanistan. The news is already out. Meetings have gone on for weeks to alert the Marja townspeople. The tribal elders know about it. It’s in the Los Angeles Times. It’s all over Afghanistan. Hell and the entire World know it. And the Taliban Soldiers of Allah know it. The Marines have been instructed not to shoot back if there are civilians in the line of fire. Protecting Afghanistan civilians’ lives must count for more than American lives. It’s CIC Barack Obama and...

2/8/2010 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFNS) -- To any other member of the 965th Expeditionary Airborne Air Control Squadron, the five Canadian airmen who work with them are a part of the team. And that's just the way they like it. Each day the five Canadians work together as part of a crew on an E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft supporting missions in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility from an air base in Southwest Asia. Their presence with the 965th EAACS; however, is part of an international partnership between the United States and Canada -- known...

2/8/2010 - BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- Members of the Afghan National Army Air Corps and the 438th Air Expeditionary Advisory Group/Combined Air Power Task Force completed a joint rotary wing medical evacuation Feb. 3, 2010, from Bagram Airfield to Forward Operating Base Lightening in Gardez, Afghanistan. The mission was to transport an Afghan national who had been receiving care at the Craig Joint Theater Hospital at Bagram Airfield to a local medical facility in Gardez, Afghanistan, for continued care and to allow the patient to be closer to home. Other units that contributed to the mission were the 455th...

COMBAT OUTPOST FIDDLER’S GREEN, Afghanistan Sgt. Jefferson Haney is a rarity, and his fellow Marines look at him with just a little bit of envy. The artilleryman with the 3rd Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment is one of few who have done what they spent countless hours training for: firing his howitzer at the enemy. “Two rounds on an enemy bunker,” recalled Haney as he stood near the firing line at Fiddler’s Green, a combat outpost in Helmand province. “The bunker was destroyed.” With new and more stringent rules of engagement imposed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal in an effort to reduce...

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghan men, women and children fearing imminent fighting between the Taliban and US troops, loaded up trucks on Monday and streamed out of one of the world's main sources of heroin. Wrapped in blankets to fend off the winter chill, families packed up goats, furniture and clothes, clogging roads with taxis, cars and tractors in a major exodus to safety, dodging roadside bombs planted to kill US and NATO troops. "We left the area because lots of aircraft were flying over and lots of forces were moving back and forth," Shir Ali Khan told AFP...

SNIPPET: "Troops say they have seen insurgents sending out boys to lay IEDs, sometimes only 150 yards from British positions. A senior Army source said: ‘The Taliban know that if they get caught in the sights of our snipers, they don’t last long, so they have resorted to hiding behind compound walls and directing children to plant bombs for them. ‘Lots of home-made IEDs detonate before they have even been laid, but the Taliban don’t seem to care whether a child gets killed or maimed. Some boys are as young as 12.’" SNIPPET: "In neighbouring Musa Qaleh district, where Prince...

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday he is considering instituting conscription to build an army large enough to provide security without international help. Karzai told a conference of the world's top defence officials in Munich that he wants to build and train an army and police force of 300,000 by 2012 that will be able to provide security for Afghanistan by 2015 without foreign help. Within five years, "Afghanistan should be able to provide security for its people so we are no longer a burden on the shoulders of the international community," Karzai said. Last week, however, Afghanistan's defence minister...

MIDWEST CITY, Okla. – Mike Boettcher, a well-respected journalist and foreign war correspondent who grew up in Ponca City, Okla. spoke at the annual Oklahoma Press Association Mid-Winter Convention on Saturday and discussed his amazing career from Ponca City News paperboy to nearly getting killed a number of times covering war-torn Afghanistan. Boettcher, teaching classes at the University of Oklahoma in Norman until May, said that while he has taken some time off from war correspondence, he is looking to return to the frontlines in the war on terror shortly after that, gathering information on a book he is working...

CASR CanadianAmerican StrategicReview -CanadianDefence Policy,Foreign Policy,& Canada-USRelations-   Editorials   Afghanistan   CASR Home Afghan Mission  –   New US Troops  –  Kandahar City  –  NATO~ISAF  –  February  2010 Task  Force  Kandahar  –  Troops  from  Canada  and  America Deployed  in  a  ' Super  Brigade '  to  Defend  Kandahar  Area Edited  excerpts  from  article  in  the Victoria  Times - Colonist ,  29  January  2010      [1]  The Canadian commander of  Task  Force Kandahar,  Brig.-Gen. Daniel  Ménard will soon have almost 6000  Canadian  and  American  troops  under  his command. Gen. Ménard  did not say exactly where the new  US  troops  would  be  deployed,  but...

American and British forces poised to assault the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, have begun targeting insurgent leaders for assassination, The Sunday Times reported. "Special forces guys have been going in on assassination missions with the aim of decapitating the Taliban force," a military source told the Sunday Times. The military has widely publicized the upcoming offensive in Marjah — the biggest Taliban-held community in the south — although the precise date for the attack in Helmand province remains classified. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said the element of surprise is not as important as letting Marjah's estimated...

An Army search dog that has saved the lives of scores of British soldiers in Afghanistan is to receive the canine equivalent of the Victoria Cross. Yet as a puppy he was a badly behaved rebel in danger of being put down until intensive Army training turned him into the gutsy canine described by his handler, Sergeant Dave Heyhoe, as the best military dog he has served alongside. Now Treo is to be honoured with the Dickin Medal from the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals for his conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. It will be placed around his neck...

If the mission in Afghanistan is two-fold, the defeat of the abysmal Taliban and the creation of a stable, democratic state, it would appear that we are not doing well. The same could be said of "nation building" in Iraq. The true measure of our efforts in both beneficiary countries should be based upon an examination of the foundations of these countries that we have created with the blood of our best and treasure. When such an examination is made the result can only be horror. The constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan for those who love democracy, freedom, and liberty,...

KABUL, Feb 7 (Reuters) - An Afghan police commander has been arrested as part of a ring that planted roadside bombs, NATO-led forces said on Sunday, a sign of the difficulty Western troops face in setting up Afghan security forces they can trust. International troops and Afghan security forces arrested the police commander in Mahmud Raqi, a district of mainly French-patrolled Kapisa province north of Kabul, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. "A known IED facilitator, he has been involved in the storage, distribution and installation of IEDs on the roads surrounding Mahmud Raqi," ISAF said in a...

AMERICAN and British troops poised to assault the Taliban stronghold of Marjah have begun targeting insurgent leaders for assassination. Military sources said special forces had been infiltrating the town on “kinetic” missions — jargon for armed attacks. “Special forces guys have been going in on assassination missions with the aim of decapitating the Taliban force,” one said. At the British base of Camp Bastion and the adjoining Camp Leatherneck, the US marine base, troops and munitions have been airlifted in by night to avoid enemy rockets. It is clear that international forces are on the brink of a big battle....

While the passionate antiwar protests of the Vietnam era have come and gone along with the draft, there are still a few emboldened people who will do whatever necessary — including getting arrested countless times — to stop the seemingly pointless loss of innocent lives. Cindy Sheehan is among those on the front lines, waging the war against war. When Sheehan lost her son Casey to the war in Iraq in 2004, it became her life’s goal not to let the same fate befall others. Her goal: stop the violence by any means possible. Her dedication to her cause has...

The U.S. military has reprimanded an unusually large number of commanders for battlefield failures in Afghanistan in recent weeks, reflecting a new push by the top brass to hold commanders responsible for major incidents in which troops are killed or wounded, said senior military officials. The military does not release figures on disciplinary actions taken against field commanders. But officials familiar with recent investigations said letters of reprimand or other disciplinary action have been recommended for officers involved in three ambushes in which U.S. troops battled Taliban forces in remote villages in 2008 and 2009. Such administrative actions can scuttle...

KABUL -- Thousands of U.S., British and Afghan troops are poised to launch the biggest offensive of the war in Afghanistan in a test of the Obama administration's new counterinsurgency strategy. 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 and drug-trafficking hub in southern poppy-growing Helmand province. Senior NATO commanders and top Afghan officials have openly discussed the approximate time of Operation Moshtarak - the Dari language word for "together" - the size of the...

There is a saying in police work and in military service that certain very noxious, offensive substances always roll downhill. That is to say, foul-ups instigated by bad policy will always be blamed on the lowest possible links in the chain of command. Such is the case now in Afghanistan. Diana West writes extensively about U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal’s (pictured above with CIC Obama) “hearts and minds” Afghanistan counter-insurgency campaign: Sacrificing American lives by denying artillery and air support to our ground troops pinned down under heavy enemy fire is acceptable, because artillery and bombs may cause collateral damage...

ISTANBUL, Feb. 5, 2010 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today pledged surplus mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles along with expanded access to classified information to U.S. allies to help in combating the threat of improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates conducts a news conference in Istanbul after meeting with fellow NATO defense ministers and those of other countries supporting the effort in Afghanistan, Feb. 5, 2010. DOD photo by Cherie Cullen  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “The United States will now do whatever we can within the limits of U.S. law, and as soon as we...

KABUL, Feb. 5, 2010 – A combined Afghan and international security force detained several suspected insurgents and seized weapons and opium in recent operations, military officials reported. A combined force searched a compound south of the village of Bangluk in Kabul province’s Kalakan district last night after intelligence indicated militant activity there. The force detained “a few” suspected insurgents, officials said. Meanwhile, a combined security force arrested several suspected insurgents and confiscated a weapons cache yesterday in Kabul’s Paghman district. The cache contained 18 hand grenades, three AK-47 assault rifles, a pistol and ammunition. Elsewhere, an International Security Assistance Force...

Courtesy UK Ministry of DefenceElements of the Royal Welsh, Grenadier Guards and Scots Guards have taken part in an air and ground ISAF operation to the south of Nad e-Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.The operation, being conducted with Afghan National Security Forces, is part of the preparation for a major ISAF offensive known as Operation MOSHTARAK.Op MOSHTARAK has been planned to remove insurgents from areas of central Helmand not previously cleared by ISAF troops. Major General Gordon Messenger briefed the media today on Op MOSHTARAK. He said that the operation was fully supported by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and that...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4, 2010 – As his staff wraps up the final mission rehearsal exercise before taking command of Afghanistan’s Regional Command East this summer, the 101st Airborne Division commander is enjoying a new-found luxury: the ability to focus his entire training effort on a single combat theater. Army Maj. Gen. John Campbell, whose headquarters will take on the mission it passed to the 82nd Airborne Division in June, no longer has to divide his attention between combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. All four of his brigade combat teams and his aviation brigade are deploying to or slated to...

ISTANBUL, Feb. 4, 2010 – Although he stopped short of saying the worst is over for troops as they prepare to surge into some of the toughest Taliban-held areas, the top NATO and U.S. commander in Afghanistan said here today that conditions no longer are deteriorating. “I am not prepared to say that we have turned the corner. I am saying that the situation is serious. But I think we have made significant progress in setting conditions in 2009, and … we’ll make real progress in 2010,” said Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA, Afghanistan, Feb. 4, 2010 – The active-duty Army and National Guard members of a new route-clearance patrol formed here last month would experience many “firsts” in their maiden voyage. For many members of the 17th Fires Brigade’s 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery, based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., last week’s opening mission marked the first time they’d served as part of a route-clearance unit – a job typically left to combat engineers. The soldiers are taking on a substantially different role from their normal mission of manning multiple-launch rocket system batteries. For the members of the...

KABUL, Feb. 4, 2010 – A combined Afghan and international security force captured a Taliban leader and seized multiple weapons in Afghanistan yesterday, military officials reported. The force searched a series of compounds around the village of Saleh Kheyl in Ghazni province’s Jaghatu district after intelligence confirmed militant activity there. The force captured a Taliban sub-commander and another insurgent responsible for conducting homemade-bomb attacks and ambushes against Afghan and international troops. The force also found multiple weapons. In Helmand, a combined security force searched a vehicle northwest of Marjah in Nad Ali district after intelligence indicated militant activity there. The...

ISTANBUL, Feb. 4, 2010 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates left the Washington, D.C., Beltway yesterday, putting the politics of war spending behind him, only to land squarely in the middle of the same debate among the NATO partners here. Turkish officials greet Defense Robert M. Gates upon his arrival at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Feb. 4, 2010. Gates is attending a two-day conference of NATO defense ministers. DoD photo by Cherie Cullen  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Gates flew overnight to spend today and tomorrow working with U.S. allies to help in prioritizing the organization’s spending and at...

ISTANBUL—Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, said he no longer believes the battlefield situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating, the first time he has made such a determination since taking command in Kabul last summer. Gen. McChrystal cautioned that he doesn't yet believe the U.S.-led coalition is winning or has "turned the corner." He also said that his conclusion is based more on anecdotal evidence... But he said he has heard increasingly positive feedback from tribal leaders about the security situation in southern Afghanistan—long the most violent part of the country—which has led him to believe...

ISLAMIC SUPREMACY - THE FASCIST IDEOLOGY OF: WORLD DOMINATION - TO CONTROL THE WORLD ISLAMIC SUPREMACISM is the belief that Islam is superior to other religions, cultures, and governmental systems, and the belief that Islam's superiority entitles Muslims to dominate, control, and rule non-Muslims. http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2008/12/islamic-supremacism.html 'Islamic Supremacy' - WSJ.comhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB123211637982290301.html British Jihad and Islamic Supremacism http://www.britishjihad.com Study: Iran Indoctrinating Children in Islamic Supremacism - http://www.nysun.com/foreign/study-iran-indoctrinating-children-in-islamic/73162/ Crossroads in History: The Struggle against Jihad and Supremacist... In fighting Islamic supremacism, instead of an approach only based on ... The true challenge of Islamic supremacism to America and the free world... http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/blog/imm-articles/090.html Islamic Supremacism:...

As the administration fiddles and fumbles with its soft- on-terror policies at home, one Obama-blessed campaign abroad is hitting al Qaeda and its franchises hard: the drone war. Drones work. They kill terrorists. Important terrorists. And we don't have to squabble about where to put their shredded bodies on trial. For all the billions poured into Afghan pockets, the continuing giveaways to well-connected contractors, the abuse of our military as glorified aid workers and terrorist targets, and the general strategic incoherence in Washington, we're getting this one thing right.

SNIPPET: "Midway through the trial, two jurors were excused after they told the judge that a man in the visitor's gallery made a hand motion as if he were firing a gun at them and mouthed an obscenity. One of the jurors told the judge he was "really freaked out" by the incident and another said he could not remain impartial "anything anyone makes what I view as a death threat." The guilty verdict on all counts means that at sentencing the judge could order Siddiqui spend the rest of her life in a federal prison."

PANJSHIR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – The Panjshir Ministry of Justice, together with the Independent Afghanistan Bar Association, hosted the valleys first-ever Rule of Law training conference, Jan 19 –26, in an effort to build capacity in the administration of justice in Panjshir province, Afghanistan. 50 local officials including judges, prosecutors, police officers and other members of the justice sector participated in the training. The curriculum covered prison, civil and juvenile law, civil rights, ethics and anti-corruption, monitoring of government departments, role of the defense attorney, illegal detentions, investigations, inheritance, criminal procedures, crimes against the government, and other legal issues.Mr. Mahboobullah Nikzad,...

GHAZNI PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Ghazni Provincial Reconstruction Team travelled to the district of Kwaji Omari to bring much needed medical supplies to the clinic, and to conduct an engineering assessment for equipping the clinic with alternative energy capabilities, Jan. 30. Due to a recent increase of insurgent activity in a neighboring district, there has been a growing number of patients being seen in the clinic. Subsequently, medical supplies were running dangerously low, driving the need for replenishment. The boxes brought to the clinic contained items such as antibiotics, analgesics, pediatric medications, infant formula, cereal products for toddlers, and contraceptives for...

Story by U.S. Air Force Capt. Tony Wickman KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – The Kunar Construction Center in the Shigal district held a graduation ceremony and job fair for 100 local Afghans trained in carpentry, masonry, painting, plumbing and electrical wiring, Jan.31. Ted Wittenberger, U.S. Agency for International Development representative for Kunar province, Fazlullah Wahidi, Kunar provincial governor, most of the Kunar district sub-governors, area tribal elders and the Kunar Provincial Reconstruction Team members attended the graduation. In his remarks to the crowd, Wittenberger said that since the opening of KCC, nearly 700 young men have graduated and found work...

A US court has found a Pakistani female scientist guilty of attempting to murder US agents while she was detained for questioning in Afghanistan. The prosecution said Aafia Siddiqui, a US-trained neuroscientist, picked up an army rifle and shot at the US agents.

NEW YORK — A U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist has been convicted of charges she tried to kill Americans while she was detained in Afghanistan. A Manhattan jury found Aafia Siddiqui guilty Wednesday of seven counts of attempted murder. Authorities had called her an Al Qaeda supporter before she was detained in Afghanistan in 2008. They claim she was caught carrying bomb-making instructions and a list of New York landmarks. However, she had not faced terrorism charges.

HELSINKI, Finland, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. military recently announced that the elders of the Shinwari tribe, which comprises 600,000 people in Nangarhar province and spans the Afghan-Pakistan border, signed an agreement to keep the Taliban out of their area. The United States agreed to pay $1 million into a Shinwaru tribal fund and $200,000 for a jobs program. The tribal elders admitted that the pact grew as much out of frustration with the Afghan central government as from hostility toward the Taliban. U.S. frustration with the present Afghan central government is no secret. In November, Karl Eikenberry, the...

Addressing the nation on December 1, 2009, President Barack Obama laid out the case for an augmented American presence in Afghanistan to battle the Taliban forces seeking to push their way back into power. “Over the last several years, the Taliban has maintained common cause with al-Qaeda, as they both seek an overthrow of the Afghan government,” he declared. The president offered a brief account of the Taliban’s rise to power before the U.S. tossed them out in November 2001. “Al-Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan,” he said, “where they were harbored by the Taliban—a ruthless, repressive, and radical...

2/2/2010 - KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- Airmen of the 772nd Expeditionary Airlift Squadron here dropped 56 containerized delivery systems over three different drop zones within Afghanistan from the same aircraft Jan. 27 to support Operation Enduring Freedom warfighters. "It's more bundles than we've ever been able to drop in one day," said Maj. Joe Framptom, a 772nd EAS operations officer. "We're testing it to iron out any kinks so we'll be able to go full speed and do more airdrops like this once the new rigging facility opens up," he said. The Army 82nd Airborne Corps' new rigging facility,...

At sunset a convoy of Canadian Light Armored Vehicles over-watches the area near Khadan Village, Afghanistan, Jan. 25. (22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment Photo by Staff Sgt. Christine Jones) 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment Photo by Staff Sgt. Christine Jones KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - On Jan. 26, Afghan National Police and Canadian Forces took part in Operation Tazi, the first of many future operations, partnering with the ANP in the village of Khadan, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. "The ANP are taking the lead on this, we are going to ask permission. 'Hello, we are conducting a security operation, can we search this...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2010 – The 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division will deploy to Afghanistan as part of the surge of American troops into that country, Defense Department officials said today. The 3,200 soldiers of the Fort Campbell, Ky.,-based unit will deploy in late summer, along with another 900 active and reserve component soldiers. “This is the last of the major units to be announced,” said Army Lt. Col. Mark Wright, a Pentagon spokesman. The process started with President Barack Obama’s speech in November announcing a new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy. Obama also called for a surge of...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2010 – A combined Afghan and international security force detained several suspected militants in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province during two operations yesterday. During the first operation, the combined force searched a vehicle after intelligence information indicated militant activity, and detained several people for further questioning. In the second operation, a combined force searched a vehicle and detained a man. In other operations yesterday: -- A combined force searched a compound in Khowst province after intelligence data indicated insurgent activity. During the search, the force captured a terrorist cell operator and other insurgents responsible for the movement of mines,...

Dear Mr. President, We are still a free country with a constitution and our God-given unalienable individual rights. You can't just order people to purchase your health insurance plan. The congress does not have the constitutional authority to enact your socialist health care plan anyway. The federal government has no authority to involve itself in health care issues. And your plan is most definitely socialism whether you care to admit it or not. And it's unconstitutional. But I do love your methodology. No matter what the problem, all we have to do is throw more federal money at it and...

There are, of course, some fundamental differences between the Soviets' war in the 1980s and the U.S.-led mission today. First, the Soviet Union intervened to save a communist regime which was in danger of collapsing due to resistance to its comprehensive and often traumatic social-engineering programs. Unlike the Soviets and their client regime, the United States is not interested in forcibly removing the burkas from Afghan women, shooting large numbers of mullahs for resisting secularization, or reprogramming the political and social mores of Afghans. Instead, Washington has a far more limited objective: namely, ensuring that Afghanistan remains an inhospitable base...

As a boy in Frederick, Md., David Smith loved to play with his Army and G.I. Joe action figures and spent hours rescuing his older sister Kristen from all manner of imagined peril. As a young man just out of high school, Smith joined the Marine Corps, because he was moved, his friends and family said, to make a difference and put the lives of others ahead of his own. He served in Iraq in 2006 and then volunteered for a tour of duty in Afghanistan. On Tuesday, Sgt. David Smith, 25, died of injuries suffered in a suicide bomber...

KABUL, Feb. 1, 2010 – The International Security Assistance Force’s joint command announced a new Web site today to support the public affairs project, "30 Days Through Afghanistan." The Web-based project kicks off Feb. 8 and aims to bring the people, the mission and the experiences of ISAF's 44 participating nations to a worldwide audience through the eyes of military reporters U.S Air Force Tech. Sgts. Nathan Gallahan and Kenneth Raimondi. "The opportunity to show the world the ISAF counter-insurgency strategy in action through the eyes of two of our military journalists is unique," said Navy Capt. Jane Campbell, the...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1, 2010 – Afghan and international forces responded to two suicide bombers in Afghanistan’s Qalat City today. A member of the Afghan force shot one of the suicide bombers, who then detonated his explosives. An Afghan troop received minor injuries, but did not require further medical attention. Afghan national police and international forces secured the area and continued the search for the second bomber who had fled the scene. There were no civilian casualties during the attack. In other operations today, international troops assisted Afghan forces in an investigation after Afghan national police found a significant weapons cache...