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(CNN)Some time in May 2014, Paul Overby, an American writer in his 70's, disappeared as he was traveling between Khost in Afghanistan and North Waziristan in Pakistan -- a region rife with the Taliban and terror groups such as al Qaeda. He has not been heard from since. On Wednesday, his wife went public for the first time with his disappearance, providing a statement to CNN and other media outlets. . . Overby's wife, who asked not to be identified by name, last heard from her husband on May 16, 2014, as he was preparing to cross the border into...

American Special Forces Kill 170, Capture ISIS Capital in Afghanistan During an operation in Deh Bala, an area in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, American Green Berets worked with three Afghan commando companies to combat ISIS in the region. The US military has confirmed that, during the operation, approximately 170 terrorists were killed in the ISIS capital, and the area is no longer in the hands of terrorists. The joint US-Afghan assault took place between April and was largely completed by early June. Around 600 Green Berets took part in the operation along with their Afghan counterparts. In the end,...

Officials familiar with the Pakistan prong of Washington’s new “AfPak” strategy — which involves an open-ended commitment in Afghanistan and praise for India — say it has yet to be fleshed out. But they have plenty of levers. President Donald Trump last month promised to get tough on Pakistan, accusing it of “housing the very terrorists that we are fighting”. It was the most public breach yet in an often rocky relationship. “No US president has come out on American national television and said such things about Pakistan,” said Husain Haqqani, former Pakistan ambassador to the US. “US policymakers are...

This week, the Globe and Mail asked General Lewis McKenzie (Retired) to write the obituary of American diplomat Richard Holbrooke. It was a good idea. The two men had crossed paths more than once on the global stage of the Great Game. McKenzie declined. Holbrooke had just died and the general knew that what he had to say would hardly produce the standard panegyric. When I caught up with McKenzie, he was shoveling snow after a spell away from home. I asked for an interview and to my surprise, he agreed. “I’m just going to tell you what I thought...

"My time in the Obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience." It was close to midnight on Jan. 20, 2009, and I was about to go to sleep when my iPhone beeped. There was a new text message. It was from Richard Holbrooke. It said, "Are you up, can you talk?" When I called, he told me that Barack Obama had asked him to serve as envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He would work out of the State Department, and he wanted me to join his team. "No one knows this yet. Don't tell anyone. Well, maybe...

Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years, has rejected the argument that torture was necessary to successfully combat terrorism - and denied claims that waterboarding detainees provided intelligence that helped end the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. (snip) On CBS' "The Early Show" Friday, McCain denied claims made by Rep. Peter King, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who said earlier this week that through the use of such tactics, a courier for the al Qaeda leader was identified. (snip) "Through normal, conventional...

NEW DELHI: Everything is going right these days for India, except for one big problem: It is living next to a Pakistan that is coming apart politically, and Indian leaders insist with a tone of resignation that there's nothing they can do about it. Starting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, top Indian officials know that their booming democracy is endangered by the growing chaos across the border in Pakistan. ---------- Welcome to the world's most dangerous zero-sum game. The sad fact is that India and Pakistan, separated at birth in 1947, are locked in what seems like a blood feud....

The Obama administration has decided to walk away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the Afghanistan war in an effort to de-emphasize the president's pledge that he would begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011, administration and military officials said Tuesday. The new policy will be on display next week during a NATO conference in Lisbon, Portugal, where the administration hopes to introduce a timeline that calls for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan by 2014, according to three senior officials and others speaking anonymously as a matter of policy. Afghan President Hamid Karzai...

She writes that if we don’t stop the Taliban, American and Dutch women will be subject to the horrors of the life of a Pashtun peasant maiden, possibly cooking dinner over an livestock dung fire, being forced to wear unfashionable clothes, etc. As the Taliban succeed, their power across Afghanistan will spread; and with that, similar movements, inspired by their achievements, will gain strength–indeed, already are gaining strength–across the region, in countries from Somalia to Iran, and onward to Holland and the U.S.A. There will be women there, as well. We must not abandon them. It really is starting to...

I long thought that the feminism that is often used to justify our presence in Afghanistan long after the failure to capture or kill Osama bin-Laden – the longest war in American history – was a cover for something else. However, with Hillary Clinton in charge of the State Department, and now this outrageous statement, I’m not so sure any longer. Although Americans have long justified violence on behalf of women, for example by lynching innocent men – both black and white – in the old South, beating and shooting men in their homes over domestic disputes and other such...

If we needed yet another example of Washington's self-absorption, we sure got it with the WikiLeaks dump of classified data on AfPak. Government officials promptly freaked about the political consequences. The rush to insist that "there's nothing new here" and that the leaks "really don't change anything" was dishonest even by DC standards. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies! The victims of this tragic event aren't punch-drunk White House staffers or members of Congress up for re-election. They're not the wed-to-Pakistan wonks at State or even the Pentagon's hide-the-bad-news generals. The forgotten victims are our troops on the ground. And the...

The US has virtually rejected India’s demand for a monitoring mechanism on military aid being given to Pakistan for the fight against terror. At the same time, it has also raised concerns about the links the ISI has with terror outfits and said that the strategic approach of the Pakistani spy agency needs to fundamentally change. The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said that there are concerns about “the links the ISI has”. He admitted that there is a lot about the Pakistani spy agency that the US does not know and added that...

Pakistan has been diverting a large part of US funds meant for the global war on terrorism for conventional weapon procurements from China and other countries. This illegal diversion of US provided funds, far more than what is known in public, is resulting in a massive modernisation of Pakistan's military beyond its official means, believes the Indian security establishment. A source said that the findings and concerns of India were shared with the US during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's US visit in April. This issue formed a substantial part of the conversation between the two sides. Officials later said US...

<p>Three key senators on Tuesday joined the Washington chorus questioning the judgment of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, adding that his fate is in the hands of President Obama.</p> <p>The statement by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham is important because it gives the Obama administration political cover if the president decides to fire McChrystal. The three senators are longtime backers of the military.</p>

As the Pakistan-US strategic dialogue and its accompanying hype wound down in Washington, US briefed India about the content and scope of the discussions between the two sides. US national security adviser, Gen Jim Jones called up Shivshankar Menon, national security adviser, to bring him up to speed on the talks, while US undersecretary William Burns briefed his counterpart, Nirupama Rao. Specifically, the conversations were intended to allay any Indian apprehensions of “secret” understandings reached with Pakistan. As the joint statement made clear, there was no reference to India or Kashmir in the document. Even on the water issue, the...

The US death toll in Afghanistan has reached 1,000 with the number of soldiers killed doubling since last year. The icasualties.org website, which tracks military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, said 54 US soldiers had died in the war so far this year, as the coalition tries to regain momentum in its eight-year campaign. It was the worst toll for two consecutive months since the US-led invasion of 2001 and compared with a toll of 30 in the same period last year.

Political forces in Pakistan want the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency to be placed under civilian control but the matter has been put on the backburner for the time being, President Asif Ali Zardari has said. "The political forces want the ISI should be brought under civilian control but for the time being, this matter has been shelved," Zardari said in an interview with a TV news channel. He did not give the reasons for the issue being shelved. The government led by Zardari's Pakistan People's Party had attempted to place the ISI under the control of the interior ministry in...

War On Terror: The anti-war crowd says the small number of enemy fighters inside Afghanistan doesn't justify sending 30,000 fresh troops there. They fail to understand the larger problem. Sen. Barbara Boxer complains al-Qaida is scarcely in Afghanistan. She cites an intelligence report leaked to ABC News that only 100 fighters are actually present inside the country, along with several thousand Taliban fighters. "I do not support adding more troops," the California Democrat argued, "because there are now 200,000 American, NATO and Afghan forces fighting roughly 20,000 Taliban and less than 100 al-Qaida." In other words, why are we even...

A New Viet Nam? thelastcrusade.org U.S. residents are split over whether the country can achieve its goals in Afghanistan, according to a Gallup poll released this weekend. Almost three-quarters of those surveyed, 73%, say they fear spending in Afghanistan will interfere with domestic goals. Just over half, 51% , stated their support for the president's strategy, while 48% said they oppose it.

The Manmohan Singh government on Thursday said it was imperative for the international community to continue putting pressure on Pakistan to dismantle the safe havens that export terror into the neighbourhood. Responding to President Barack Obama’s Afghan policy, MEA spokesperson Vishnu Prakash said Pakistan has to be persuaded to root out these safe havens. `` India believes that it is in the interest of the international community to impress upon Pakistan that it must use all its influence and resources to implement its commitments to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism and to deny sanctuary to all terrorist groups who operate...