AFGHANISTAN: The News Is Bad

While U.S. officials insist they are making progress in reversing the momentum built up by the Taliban insurgency over the last several years, the latest news from Afghanistan suggests the opposite may be closer to the truth.

Concerns Grow over Bagram’s Prison within a Prison

The administration of President Barack Obama is considering using Afghanistan's U.S.-run Bagram Air Base prison to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects captured far from a battlefield and who have not been charged with a crime - without any judicial oversight.

Draft U.N. Treaty Targets Security Firms in War Zones

A United Nations Working Group that monitors the activities of mercenaries worldwide is now trying to rein in the widespread human rights abuses by private military and security companies (PMSCs), which are being increasingly deployed in war zones and peacekeeping operations.

CIA Drone Operators Oppose Strikes as Helping al Qaeda

Some CIA officers involved in the agency's drone strikes programme in Pakistan and elsewhere are privately expressing their opposition to the programme within the agency, because it is helping al Qaeda and its allies recruit, according to a retired military officer in contact with them.

U.N. Expert Calls On U.S. To Halt CIA Targeted Killings

Targeted killings, including those using drones, are increasingly being applied in ways that violate international law, according to a report issued Wednesday by a United Nations expert on extrajudicial killings.

Rights Groups Condemn Ruling on Bagram Detainees

Human rights advocates are expressing shock at a federal court ruling that detainees held by the United States in Afghanistan do not have the right to challenge their detention in a U.S. federal court - and dismay that their path to a successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court may be blocked.

McChrystal Strategy Shifts to Raids – and Wali Karzai

Gen. Stanley McChrystal's team once talked openly about the need to remove Ahmed Wali Karzai, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother and the most powerful man in Kandahar, from power.

Bill for Afghan War Could Run into the Trillions

The U.S. Senate is moving forward with a 59-billion-dollar spending bill, of which 33.5 billion dollars would be allocated for the war in Afghanistan.

Obama, Karzai Still Split on Peace Talks with Taliban

U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai sought to portray a united front on the issue of a political settlement with the Taliban in their joint press conference Wednesday. But their comments underlined the deep rift that divides Karzai and the United States over the issue.

U.S. Urged to Probe “Second Prison” at Bagram

Pressure is mounting on the U.S. government to investigate reports that inmates from the notorious prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan have been moved to a second separate facility - known as the Tor Jail, which translates as "black jail" - where they say they were held in isolation in cold cells with a light on day and night and deprived of sleep by U.S. military personnel.

Pentagon Faces Battle in Effort to Reverse Military Contracting

Pentagon chief Robert Gates has called for a cutback of 15 billion dollars in wasteful military spending on contractors as well as government bureaucracy, or risk not being able to pay for its current force.

Pentagon Doubts Grow on McChrystal War Plan

Although Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's plan for wresting the Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar from the Taliban is still in its early stages of implementation, there are already signs that setbacks and obstacles it has encountered have raised serious doubts among top military officials in Washington about whether the plan is going to work.

Pentagon Map Shows Wide Taliban Zone in the South

The Pentagon was still trying to spin its report on the war in Afghanistan issued this week as holding out hope because the instability had leveled off, even as some news outlets were noting that it documents the continued expansion of Taliban capabilities and operations.

AFGHANISTAN: War-Zone Medical Aid Doubly Endangered

The case of the three Italians arrested this month on suspicion of trying to assassinate a southern Afghan governor concluded with a happy ending of sorts and a sure fire certainty - an uncompromising attitude that makes war-zone medical aid doubly dangerous.

Ninety-Four Percent of Kandaharis Want Peace Talks, Not War

An opinion survey of Afghanistan's Kandahar province funded by the U.S. Army has revealed that 94 percent of respondents support negotiating with the Taliban over military confrontation with the insurgent group and 85 percent regard the Taliban as "our Afghan brothers".

U.S. Breathes Sigh of Relief Over Manas Base for Now

The administration of President Barack Obama is breathing a sigh of relief that the past week's successful insurrection against former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev appears unlikely to result in any curbs - at least, for now - on its use of Kyrgyzstan's Manas Air Base.

McChrystal Backtracks on Troop Veto for Kandahar Shuras

The U.S. military has now officially backtracked from its earlier suggestion that it would seek the consent of local shuras, or consultative conferences with those elders, to carry out the coming military occupation of Kandahar city and nearby districts – contradicting a pledge by Afghan President Hamid Karzai not to carry out the operation without such consent.

U.S.: Ignorance of Afghan Society Led to Botched Raids

A Special Operations Forces raid on Feb. 12 on what was supposed to be the compound of a Taliban leader but that killed three women and two Afghan government officials demonstrated a fatal weakness of the U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan: after eight years of operating there, the U.S. military still has no understanding of the personal, tribal and other local socio-political conflicts.

/UPDATE*/POLITICS: Kyrgyz Leaders Say U.S. Can Use Air Base

Kyrgyzstan's new leaders sought to reassure Washington Thursday that it can continue to use the strategic Manas airbase near the capital Bishkek as a supply link for U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

POLITICS: Afghan Official Says U.S. Raiders Hid Killings

The head of the Afghan Ministry of Interior investigation said publicly for the first time his investigators had accepted the testimony of family members of the victims of the Feb. 12 raid by U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) that the U.S. troops had dug bullets out of the bodies of their victims in an apparent effort to cover up the killings and that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal had agreed with the team's conclusions.

RIGHTS-US: Legality of Drone Strikes Still in Question

While welcoming an initial effort by the administration of President Barack Obama to offer a legal justification for drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists overseas, human rights groups say critical questions remain unanswered.