WASHINGTON : Four Americans were killed Tuesday in an attack on Bagram air base by insurgents in Afghanistan, a US defense official said. The deaths were caused by insurgent “indirect fire,” either mortars or rockets, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Taliban ...

WASHINGTON  - The Pentagon said on Monday it will spend $572 million to buy 30 Russian-built military helicopters that will be used by Afghan security forces. The Mi-17 helicopters will be used by Afghanistan's National Security Forces Special Mission Wing, which supports counter-terrorism, ...

WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama Tuesday expressed guarded optimism about the Taliban’s announcement Tuesday that it will sit down for direct peace talks with US and Afghanistan officials.In comments at the Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland, Obama said the direct talks are an ...

KABUL  - Afghan security forces will soon take over responsibility for the whole of the country, officials said Saturday, a major milestone as the Nato-led war effort winds down after 12 years of fighting.The handover of the last 95 districts from Nato to Afghan forces includes many of the ...

ISLAMABAD - A two-day training workshop on 'Competition and Consumer Protection' for the officials of the Afghanistan's Ministry of Commerce and Industries, Afghanistan Investment and Reconstruction Task Force, and Afghanistan's Competition and Consumer Protection Directorate (CCPD), was held at ...

KABUL  - A suicide bomb attack, targeting US and Afghan forces, killed two NATO soldiers and a policeman in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, the international coalition said, adding 10 schoolchildren also died in the blast as they were returning home from class.The police chief of Paktia ...

JAMES FERGUSSON - Nato’s Afghan campaign has not expired yet, but with Britain and those of her allies who have not already left now jostling for the 2014 exit, it is not too early to start the post-mortem. The first, book-length attempt to evaluate British expenditure of blood and treasure, ...

In the face of Phil Hammond’s lame attempts at deflection, the revelation that up to 90 Afghans have been held in a secret, apparently extrajudicial prison in Camp Bastion, some of them for up to 14 months, tells us a number of things.For a start it counters a theory which was once commonly ...

Clash between Taliban militants and pro-government villagers in Andar district of Ghazni province, 125 km south of Kabul, has left 31 Taliban fighters dead on Friday."Taliban militants raided three villages in Andar district at 01:00 a.m. local time and we resisted. The gun battle lasted for six ...

JALALABAD- Militants launched a suicide and gun attack on a Red Cross office in Jalalabad city, east Afghanistan, on Wednesday killing at least one guard, officials said.The assault was the latest in a series of high profile, co-ordinated attacks as insurgents pile pressure on the US-backed ...

KABUL -AFP/Reuters -Afghanistan on Sunday started registering new voters for elections next year, a crucial step towards a legitimate government taking over when President Hamid Karzai relinquishes power.Four million names are expected to be added to the electoral roll before polls in April 2014, ...

Dozens of Afghan students studying in different schools of Peshawar on Saturday held a protest demonstration against the alleged maltreatment of the director education Maarif School System and demanded his removal forthwith.The demonstrators led by Hafizullah, Principal Maarif School System, ...

Fifteen Taliban militants were killed as clash erupted in Purchaman district of Farah province 695 km west of Kabul on Sunday, a local official said."A group of Taliban insurgents were preparing to storm the headquarters of Purchaman district this morning but the police force acting upon ...

PESHAWAR/KHYBER AGENCY - At least three people were killed and seven others injured when a suicide bomber targeted Afghan religious figure’s vehicle near a seminary in Peshawar suburbs on Friday.The Afghan religious leader and chief of Jamaatul Dawat Alquran and Al-Sunnah Haji Hayatullah was ...

JALALABAD - Unknown gunmen dragged the father of Afghanistan's cricket captain from his car on the outskirts of Jalalabad city and have taken him hostage, officials said on Wednesday. Mohammad Nabi, who took over the captaincy of the team in March, confirmed that his father, Khobai Isakhel, had ...

LONDON : Up to 600 Afghan interpreters who served with British forces in Afghanistan will be offered the chance of a new life in Britain after a government U-turn, it was revealed on Wednesday.Prime Minister David Cameron had initially decided to discourage the interpreters from settling in Britain ...

KABUL : A roadside bomb in western Afghanistan and clashes in the volatile south left eleven police officers dead, officials said Tuesday.The bomb killed six police guards in Herat province on Tuesday as they travelled to a hydroelectric dam that is under protection from insurgent attack.The ...

WASHINGTONThe Pentagon has asked Congress for nearly $80 billion to cover the cost of the war in Afghanistan in 2014, a spokesman said Monday.The request issued Friday for $79.4 billion in fiscal year 2014 is slightly lower than the war funding of $87.2 billion for the current fiscal year, Pentagon ...

MAZAR-I-SHARIF : A suicide bomber struck outside government buildings in northern Afghanistan on Monday, killing 14 people including a local politician in the latest attack to target provincial officials.Emergency services rushed to the scene and took the wounded to hospital after the bomber, who ...

KABUL  -  The Afghan parliament on Saturday cut short a debate on a bill to protect women from violence after complaints from some traditionalist MPs that it was against Islamic teachings.The Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) law, which was passed by a presidential decree in ...

WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama on Friday trimmed his funding request for the war in Afghanistan and other overseas operations by 10 per cent, reflecting his plans to wind down the US presence in that country.The president asked for $79.4 billion to fund so-called overseas contingency operations ...

  Ben Sheppard After scrambling up a steep mountainside in northAfghanistan, Morad Ali crouches beside a gap cut in the slope and touches some reddish-brown rock. “The gold is in here,” he says. Ali was one of generations of local men who used chisels and pickaxes to extract small ...

Thirty-five Taliban militants have been killed and 30 others wounded during operation across Afghanistan within the last 24 hours, the country's Interior Ministry said Wednesday."Afghan police supported by the army and NATO-led coalition forces launched several cleanup operations in Kunduz, ...

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) remains NATO’s top mission in Afghanistan, the alliance secretary general said, while welcoming new Supreme Allied Commander General Philip Mark Breedlove.“On your watch, Afghan forces will be taking full responsibility for the security ...

KANDAHARA bomb killed 13 civilians including women and children in southern Afghanistan on Monday as they travelled to attend the funeral of earlier bomb victims, police said.It was the latest violence since the Taliban launched their annual “spring offensive” on April 27, opening a ...

KABUL  Afghanistan's finance minister on Monday named in parliament several lawmakers whom he said were guilty of corruption, triggering wild cheering and applause during a televised session of the lower house.Corruption is one of the key challenges facing Afghanistan as it tries to establish ...

GOSHTAAfghan border police, enraged by recent clashes with their Pakistani counterparts, are pleading for more weapons, escalating the tension between the two sides.The fighting, in which an Afghan border policeman was killed last week, has caused a sharp deterioration in relations between the ...

KABUL: The US-led NATO force fighting Taliban insurgents inAfghanistansaid Wednesday it has launched an investigation into alleged misconduct by its soldiers. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) statement said that the probe would examine a clash on April 28 in the ...

  UN : With US-led coalition forces set to pull out ofAfghanistannext year,Pakistanhas underscored the role of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the transition process, and said that peace would help strengthen the war-torn country. "As the international ...

  KABUL :Afghanistan’s education minister has threatened to punish schoolgirls who claim to suffer from alleged “poisonings” that many officials believe are actually temporary psychological illnesses. Scores of girls’ schools over recent years have seen mysterious mass ...