Afghanistan News

KABUL – U.S. military airstrikes in western Afghanistan killed 13 Afghan civilians and only three militants, the U.S. said Saturday, three days after an American general traveled to the site to investigate. Civilian casualties have been a huge source of friction between the U.S. and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who …

KABUL (AFP) – Three soldiers in the US-led coalition helping to fight a Taliban-led insurgency in southern Afghanistan have died after their patrol was hit by a bomb, according to the US military. The three were killed on Friday in the southern province of Uruzgan, it said in a statement. …

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Obama administration told a federal court late Friday it will maintain the Bush administration’s position that battlefield detainees held without charges by the United States in Afghanistan are not entitled to constitutional rights to challenge their detention Having considered the matter, the government adheres to its …

KABUL (AFP) –  British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Wednesday applauded the deployment of 17,000 extra US troops to Afghanistan, but said his country had no plans to follow suit. Britain’s commitment to Afghanistan remained strong, despite the cost in cash and soldiers’ lives, the visiting Miliband told a news …

ASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama approved the deployment of 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, a surge in numbers promptly welcomed by the Kabul government Wednesday as it battles a Taliban insurgency. Stressing that “the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention and swift action,” President Obama ordered …

KABUL – Forces with the U.S.-backed coalition killed a regional Taliban commander and eight others in an airstrike in western Afghanistan, the U.S. said Monday. The Sunday night attack destroyed the building housing Ghulam Dastagir and eight other militants in the village of Darya-ye-Morghab, near the Turkmenistan border, the U.S. …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai lashed out at mounting U.S. criticism on Sunday, saying he expected “better judgment” from the Obama administration. In the latest show of strain between the allies in a seven-year war against Islamist militants, Karzai told CNN President Barack Obama‘s description of the Kabul …

Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) — Iran is helping Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, said General David Petraeus, who is in charge of U.S. forces in the Central Asian nation and Iraq. “There is a willingness to provide some degree of assistance to make the life of those who are trying to help …

KABUL (AFP) – US President Barack Obama has accepted Kabul’s request to be part of a major review of US strategy in the “war on terror” in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai and a US envoy said Sunday. Karzai said he asked Obama by letter for Afghanistan to have a role …

ALI MARDAN, Afghanistan, Feb 14 (Reuters) – The foreign warplanes swooped in just as the Afghan village of Ali Mardan was celebrating a wedding. Bombs slammed into the crowded village square, killing 30 men, women and children. After the smoke cleared and the dead were buried, all the able-bodied men …