Afghanistan

Australian troops will remain in Afghanistan for the long haul, but Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon says he understands why Canada has set a withdrawal date for its forces. Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirmed overnight that Canada would withdraw its 2,500 troops from the volatile south of Afghanistan in 2011. The …

BRDO, Slovenia – The European Union expects to have fully deployed a police training mission to Afghanistan by April and could extend it later, the bloc’s special representative to the country said on Thursday.

OTTAWA – Canada’s minority Conservative government, bowing to a key opposition demand, said on Thursday its military mission in southern Afghanistan would end in 2011 and would not be extended.

KABUL – The Afghan army has killed more than 30 Taliban fighters in an operation backed by air support in the violent south of the country, the defense ministry said on Thursday.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An explosion killed one British soldier and wounded another in southern Afghanistan Wednesday, and U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops detained 22 suspected insurgents in two separate operations, officials said. Britain’s Ministry of Defense in London said the blast hit as a British patrol was trying to …

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — In the second serious attack in southern Afghanistan in two days, a suicide bomber set off an explosion on Monday as he drove his car near a convoy of Canadian troops on a crowded border town street, killing 36 civilians and wounding 38. The governor of Kandahar …

The attack, a day after more than 100 people were killed in the deadliest suspected suicide raid since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001, comes as some Western politicians call for a stronger resolve to stop Afghanistan sliding back into anarchy.

BERLIN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday she saw no need to change parliamentary mandates that set limits on the number of troops her government can send to Afghanistan despite mounting pressure from NATO allies.

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon led international condemnation of a suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed as many as 80 people, one of the deadliest attacks since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) — The United Nations condemned “in the strongest terms” the suicide attack that killed about 80 people and injured 50 others in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar Sunday morning.