Afghanistan

BEIJING, March 7 (Xinhua) — The appointment of a new United Nations envoy for Afghanistan is the latest effort of the world body to speed up reconstruction in the war-torn country and it is expected to reinforce the international presence in face of a growing Taliban insurgency.

Farzana Wahidy flips through the photographs she took of women in Afghanistan, shopping in the market, carrying babies on their shoulder, all while cloaked under a burqa. But few of her photos depict the violence and carnage of suicide bombers that the Western world associates with the war-torn nation. The …

In the run-up to the NATO summit in Bucharest next month, the Bush administration has launched an intensive diplomatic campaign to persuade our European allies to send additional combat troops to southern Afghanistan, where the Atlantic alliance has been struggling against a resurgent Taliban.  

EDMONTON — An Edmonton soldier killed in Afghanistan will be laid to rest with a military funeral in the city at the wishes of his family, his commanding officer said Monday.

Local officials in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province said gunmen destroyed a mobile-phone tower in the Sangin district on March 2.

KABUL, March 2 (Xinhua) — Following Taliban outfit’s threat to target mobile phone companies’ towers in Taliban-held areas, the second boasting tower of ROSHAN mobile phone firm was destroyed in Afghanistan’s troubled Helmand province, locals said.

NEW YORK: Afghanistan’s Taliban knew that Britain’s Prince Harry had been deployed in their country to fight them and they had been gunning to get “an important chicken”, a leading US magazine reported on Sunday.

KABUL – Afghanistan’s parliament approved Saturday a new minister to lead the fight against an opium and heroin industry that is at historic highs and funding a growing Taliban insurgency.

CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) — US President George W. Bush on Saturday warned his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to “stop exporting terror” ahead of the Iranian leader’s historic visit to Iraq.

WASHINGTON: NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer took issue with the U.S. intelligence chief’s recent estimate that the Afghan government controlled only about 30 percent of the country.