As President Obama is set to discuss the future of US counterterrorism policy around the world, he should also provide a framework for a swift end to the US war in Afghanistan. It is our belief US troops should not stay one day longer or shed one more drop of blood, and US taxpayers should not ...

NEW DELHI - Addressing media persons in New Delhi, visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday said Kabul has given a wish list to India, but did not specify what the list contains. He also ruled out deployment of Indian soldiers in Afghanistan.Karzai said: “We have a wish list that ...

KABUL - Taliban attacks killed at least ten Afghan police on Sunday, officials said, in the latest violence against the force which is due to take more security responsibility from NATO troops before their withdrawal next year.In one of the incidents, Taliban fighters attacked a security check post ...

At least nine people were killed and more than 55 others wounded when two back-to-back explosions rocked Kandahar city, capital of the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, a provincial government spokesman said."The initial reports said that three police officers and six civilians had died and ...

The United States may keep a force of 6,000 to 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, when Afghan forces will be responsible for security across the country, a top American Senator has said.“We are planning to keep a force of perhaps 6,000 to 12,000 after 2014 when all combat forces are to ...

KANDAHARA roadside bomb killed four US soldiers in south Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said, the latest fatalities for the Nato-led coalition which is winding down after 12 years of fighting.The soldiers died in the volatile province of Kandahar, where five US troops were killed by a similar ...

KABUL : Taliban insurgents on Tuesday released the final four Turkish engineers held hostage since their helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan last month. "The remaining four Turkish nationals were released today as a sign of goodwill and as an Islamic and humanitarian gesture of respect," the ...

LONDON : Some British troops will have to stay in Afghanistan into 2015 to ensure the departure of forces is properly managed, defence minister Philip Hammond said on Tuesday.Combat operations are still due to finish by the end of 2014 but the final tours of duty will be extended to last up to a ...

GOPAL RATNAM -  The US invaded Afghanistan more than 12 years ago with a contingent of special forces and Central Intelligence Agency officers, some of them on horseback, armed with laser pointers to direct airstrikes against al-Qaeda and its Taliban hosts.Getting Americans out again will be ...

NEW YORKIn probably his first interview with a foreign newspaper after his PML-N party emerged as the leading party in Saturday’s elections in Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif said he would seek improved ties with the United States.The former Prime Minister also said he would work to promote good ...

KABUL  - The Taliban Sunday freed four of eight Turkish engineers taken hostage last month after their helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Afghan officials announced.The engineers were in good health and the other captives would also be ...

WASHINGTON The United States is not seeking permanent military bases in Afghanistan, and any future American presence in the country will be possible only at the invitation of the Afghan government, according to White House spokesman Jay Carney.The spokesman echoed what US President Barack ...

KABULAfghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that he could allow the United States to keep nine military bases in the country as part of negotiations over a long-term security pact with Washington.After more than 11 years of US-led military intervention in Afghanistan, the two countries are ...

KABULAt least 12 people died Wednesday in an armed clash between police and a group of protesters in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, authorities said."Eight Taliban and four civilians died in a protest against Pakistan in the Maiwand district," a source with the Kandahar provincial police ...

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that he could allow the United States to keep nine military bases in the country as part of negotiations over a long-term security pact with Washington.After more than 11 years of US-led military intervention in Afghanistan, the two countries are ...

KARACHISaleh Mohammad on Friday became the first Afghan to win the amateur Asian snooker title, expressing hope that his victory would lift the game in the war-ravaged country.The 40-year-old, who also represented Pakistan at a regional and world level from 1988 to 2006, beat Syria's Omar al Kojah ...

LONDON : Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday that Britain was paying a ‘very high price’ in Afghanistan after three soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb. Six British soldiers have now been killed this year in Afghanistan. Britain has not lost so many soldiers in one incident ...

LONDONAnti-war campaigners opposed to Britain’s use of armed drones in Afghanistan on Saturday marched on a military base that this week began hosting the aircraft’s human operators for the first time.Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots had been operating Reaper aircraft to support British ...

KABUL (AFP/Reuters ) - The Taliban in Afghanistan vowed on Saturday to start a new campaign of mass suicide attacks on foreign military bases and diplomatic areas, as well as damaging “insider attacks”, as part of a new spring offensive this year.The offensive was announced via emails ...

islamabad - Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani Friday said that Pakistan is committed to providing its fullest cooperation to Afghanistan to help it steer through the transition period and beyond.Foreign Secretary expressed these views while addressing the third “Heart of Asia” ...

BRUSSELS Reuters Pakistan must play a positive role in bringing stability to Afghanistan as foreign troops prepare to leave in 2014, the head of NATO said on Tuesday, before a US-chaired meeting that will try to ease friction between often feuding neighbours.US Secretary of State John Kerry will ...

One thing is certain: very few of the so-called Afghanistan experts got it right. The cheerleaders, who thought Iraq would be a walk in the park, did not take into account the greater difficulty in operating in Afghanistan’s rougher natural and human terrain. Absent deep knowledge of the ...

KABULAFPTwo local employees of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) have been killed in a ‘shocking’ attack in the north of the country, Red Cross and Red Crescent officials said Wednesday.Two other staffers were injured in the shooting Tuesday on a main road in the Khanaqa district ...

KABUL (AFP) - Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is expected to increase for a third straight year, a UN report warned on Monday. The Afghanistan Opium Risk Assessment 2013 said the country was moving towards record levels of opium production this year despite eradication efforts by the ...

The US occupation of Afghanistan was never a consequence of strategic logic. As described in these columns, it was a war that stemmed out of revenge and hate post 9/11. The impulse to pulverise the already primordial and fiercely self-independent tribesmen to the Stone Age far outweighed any ...

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has handed over the newly constructed Liaquat Ali Khan Engineering University at Balkh to Afghanistan, says a press release received from Kabul here on Wednesday.The ceremony was attended by the Pakistan Ambassador to Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, Governor of Balkh, Atta ...

LONDON - An Afghan-led peace deal with the Taliban is needed to stop Afghanistan sliding into civil war after British troops leave, a group of MPs has said, reported BBC on Wednesday.The defence select committee said the UK had a responsibility to ‘make Afghanistan work’ after ...

KABUL - A helicopter crash in eastern Afghanistan killed two American members of the Nato-led force on Tuesday, spokesmen said.There were no reports of enemy activity in the area, said Captain Dan Einert, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force.US military spokesman ...

KABUL – Two Frenchmen held hostage for more than four months in Afghanistan have been freed in a Taliban-troubled area near Kabul, officials said Monday. Firstly, Pierre Borghi, who was trying to establish himself as a photographer in Kabul, was freed in Wardak province outside the capital on ...

Afghanistan is passing through unfortunate times. Three streams of fragile transition are in progress; all in indecent haste to meet the 2014 timeline. These are in security, political and economic domains. Though political transition holds the key to success, it is the patchiest of all. The ...