Taliban

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French Troops Head to Afghanistan

Will train local forces to fend off Taliban

(Newser) - Hundreds of French troops have been deployed to train local infantry battalions in southern Afghanistan to help them fend off Taliban fighters, according to NATO officials. The deployment was one of the largest ground military convoys in the area in years, and came in response to NATO commanders' repeated requests...

500th US Death a Troubling Omen in Afghan War

'Other' war claims 500 lives, now deadlier than Iraq conflict

(Newser) - The 500th American died in Afghanistan last month and the grim milestone has helped bring the conflict back to the forefront of the nation's consciousness, the New York Times writes. Afghanistan has long been overshadowed by the Iraq war, but enemy action killed over three times as many Americans in...

Pakistani Suicide Bombers Tipping Afghan War

Taliban finds success recruiting uneducated men with few options

(Newser) - One says he wanted to kill himself anyway. Another says he was duped. Both were captured in failed suicide bombings in Afghanistan, where such attacks were unheard of until the last 2 years, denounced by village elders as cowardly and un-Islamic. Now, these bombings are at all-time highs as the...

CIA Confronts Pakistan Over Militant Ties

Secret meeting focuses on evidence of links to violent extemists

(Newser) - The CIA has confronted Pakistani officials with evidence of links between the nation's spy agency and Islamic insurgents, the New York Times reports. A top CIA official flew to Pakistan for a tense secret meeting earlier this month with information about ties to al-Qaeda-affiliated militants in the border region believed...

Taliban Targets Attacks for Maximum Panic in Kabul

Incapable of large strikes, insurgents aim to strike fear into populace

(Newser) - Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan lack the firepower to spark a massive attack, but they’re doing their best to wage psychological warfare on Kabul, Newsweek reports. Creating a sense of instability through frequent small-scale attacks, “we can create panic and undermine the last vestiges of support for the regime,...

One Day, the World Will Hate Him
 One Day, the 
 World Will Hate Him 
OPINION
Jul 22, 2008 4:40 PM CDT

One Day, the World Will Hate Him

The envy empire inspires is a great leveler

(Newser) - Should he win the White House, the rest of the world will one day see Barack Obama as a villain, David Aaronovitch writes in the London Times. The spectacle of empire and popularity drives the country's allies to both anger and envy, he argues, and every American president has come...

Obama Declares Afghanistan 'Precarious and Urgent'

Candidate pledges more US troops

(Newser) - Calling the situation in Afghanistan "precarious and urgent," Barack Obama today urged the Bush administration to make Afghanistan—rather than Iraq—"the central front in our battle against terrorism." In his first interview since arriving in the country yesterday, the Democratic candidate told Lara Logan on...

Obama Meets Afghan Leaders, Reiterates Support

Says he's interested in listening, not talking

(Newser) - Barack Obama met today with officials from one of Afghanistan’s most hard-fought regions, the AP reports, and re-iterated his commitment to intensifying US efforts there if elected president. Together with Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed, Obama visited Jalalabad Air Field in Nangarhar province. Nangarhar lies next to the Pakistani...

Taliban Shows Fresh Fangs in US Base Attack

Secure in Pakistan, insurgents gain next door in Afghanistan

(Newser) - The Taliban demonstrated complex tactics and a renewed taste for conventional warfare in the attack on a remote outpost that claimed the lives of nine US soldiers yesterday, Reuters reports. The militants drove the residents from a nearby village and used it as a base of operations from which to...

Taliban Use Marble Business to Fund Fighting

Takeover of Pakistani quarry shows group's growing power

(Newser) - One of Pakistan's most prized national assets is a marble quarry that sat shuttered by government deadlock and tribal squabbles until the Taliban took over the site by force. Now, as gleaming white stone rolls out of the quarry, the New York Times sneaks into the region to discover how...

9 US Troops Die in Afghan Attack; Suicide Bomb Kills 24

But at least 40 militants killed in separate attack on coalition forces

(Newser) - A multi-pronged militant assault on a remote US base killed nine American soldiers and wounded 15 today in the deadliest attack on US forces in Afghanistan in 3 years, officials said. The attack came the same day a suicide bomber targeting a police patrol killed 24 people, while US coalition...

Karzai Orders Inquiry Into Fatal US Airstrike

Military, Afghans spar over whether 15 victims were Taliban, civilians

(Newser) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai today ordered an investigation into a US-led airstrike on Friday that killed 15 people. At issue is whether the victims were armed Taliban, as the US military claims, or the innocent civilians that an Afghan governor believes died.

Afghan War Hamstrung by Troop Shortage

But Joint Chiefs chair says that Iraq's needs limit US options

(Newser) - The US needs more troops in Afghanistan but lacks the available forces because of the Iraq war, the nation’s top military officer said yesterday. In his most pointed remarks to date, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen said that countering the country's resurgent Taliban and booming...

Pakistan Routs Taliban Forces in Major Offensive

Government abandons diplomatic tack to cut militant violence

(Newser) - Pakistan blasted suspected militant hideouts today, launching its biggest offensive against Taliban forces since electing a government last March. The military cleared three militant outposts and forced the insurgents west, CNN reports. For weeks, tensions have mounted between militants and Islamabad, which abandoned its diplomatic strategy as insurgent strikes increased.

Afghan Taliban Resurgence Alarms Pentagon

Pentagon report cautions a renewed insurgency

(Newser) - Taliban militants in Afghanistan have regrouped “into a resilient insurgency” that has US  allies "losing ground and slipping backwards," a new Pentagon report concludes. Bombing attacks set a record in 2007, and are on track to top that in 2008. Security conditions in the war-torn country have...

Afghans Accuse Pakistan of Karzai Plot

Say they have concrete evidence of link to April assassination attempt

(Newser) - Afghanistan publicly accused Pakistan of plotting the April assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai, saying it has evidence linking Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence to the deed. A spokesman said phone records, documents, and confessions from suspects proved the ISI harbored "the real schemers and organizers" behind the attack.

US Can't Be Sure Pakistan's $5.6B Went to Fight Terror

Suspect accounting makes tracking funds nearly impossible: GAO report

(Newser) - The Defense Department cannot show that nearly $6 billion the US has sent to Pakistan since 2001 has been used, as intended, to fight terrorism. In a report yesterday, the Government Accountability Office said the Pentagon hadn’t properly tracked the funds, CNN reports, blindly signing off on questionable charges—...

Taliban Said Routed Near Kandahar

NATO forces help kill 56 insurgents in 'successful airstrikes'

(Newser) - Yesterday's swift offensive by Afghan and NATO forces drove Taliban militants from a strategic group of villages outside southern Afghanistan's largest city and killed 56 insurgents, Afghan officials said today. The Afghan National Army has taken control of the villages, a defense ministry spokesman said, but militants had planted hundreds...

Afghans Launch Assault on Taliban

Kandahar is next militant target

(Newser) - Afghan and NATO troops launched a huge offensive against the Taliban today, Reuters reports, starting with an air and ground assault on a valley in southern Afghanistan. Bolstered with hundreds of fighters freed in last week’s prison break, the Taliban has taken several villages in Arghandab, and has its...

Karzai Warns Pakistan He'll Send Troops Over Border

Afghan leader says he'll self-defend vs. militants

(Newser) - Citing the right to self defense, Afghan President Hamid Karzai warned that his country may send troops across the border with Pakistan to fight militants who have killed Afghans, BBC reports. "When they cross the territory from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and to kill coalition troops it...

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