NATO

By Kay Johnson | AP | 04 Feb 2012

Last year was the deadliest on record for civilians in the Afghan war, with 3,021 killed as insurgents ratcheted up violence with suicide attacks and roadside bombs, the United Nations said Saturday.

Taleban-affiliated militants were responsible for more than three-quarters of the civilian deaths in 2011, the fifth year in a row in which the death toll went up, the UN said.

By Reuters : Kabul | 01 Feb 2012

A secret US military report says that the Taleban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control over Afghanistan after NATO-led forces withdraw from the country, The Times newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Lt Col Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), confirmed the document’s existence but said it was not a strategic study of operations.

By Agencies | London/Kabul | 29 Jan 2012

British Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed on Saturday that he was sticking to an end-2014 deadline for withdrawing British combat troops from Afghanistan.

“We ... want to have a long-term relationship with Afghanistan, long after our combat troops come home, and that will happen at the end of 2014,” Cameron said during a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the prime minister’s country residence Chequers outside London.

By Rahim Faiez | AP | Kabul | 28 Jan 2012

France’s plans to withdraw its combat troops from Afghanistan a year early drew harsh words Saturday in the Afghan capital, with critics accusing French President Nicolas Sarkozy of putting his re-election campaign ahead of Afghans’ safety.

By Mirwais Harooni | Reuters | Kabul | 26 Jan 2012

At an army compound on Kabul's ramshackle fringe, a few of Afghanistan's most elite soldiers are running assault drills in a race to remove one of the most serious irritants in Afghan-NATO relations.

Sergeant Ghulam Mohammad shouts orders to his men -- soon to be joined for the first time by women special forces -- on how to conduct night raids, which more than any other NATO counter-insurgency tactic have angered mercurial President Hamid Karzai.

By Mathew Rosenberg | The New York Times | Kabul | 20 Jan 2012

Two British soldiers have been arrested for “inappropriate behavior” in Afghanistan, the British Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday after a newspaper report of child abuse.

Quoting defense sources, Britain’s Sun newspaper reported that the pair had abused two Afghan children aged “about ten,” and made recordings of their behavior.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a statement that the government in Kabul was “deeply disturbed” by reports of abuse, and said their alleged behavior was “immoral.”

Source : Cihan | Ankara | 17 Jan 2012

The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Tuesday slammed US presidential hopeful Rick Perry for his remarks in which he questioned Turkey's NATO membership and called Turkish leaders “Islamic terrorists,” saying the statements are groundless and inappropriate.

Written by Richard Weitz : Asia Sentinel | 04 Jan 2012

Worsening relations between the US and Pakistan and the closure of the NATO supply line to Afghanistan through Pakistan have offered new leverage to Russia, but also increase the risk of instability along its neuralgic border region.

By Joshua Kucera | The New York Times | 28 Dec 2011

There is perhaps no country on earth surrounded by more difficult neighbors than Afghanistan. When the U.S. wants to ship matériel to its troops there, it can’t go through Tajikistan because the roads are so poor; it can’t go through Turkmenistan because that country maintains an isolationist neutrality; and, for obvious reasons, it can’t go through Iran.