AFGHANISTAN: McChrystal’s Support for Raids Belies New Image

Gen. Stanley McChrystal has recently acquired the image of a master strategist of the population-sensitive counterinsurgency, reducing civilian casualties from airstrikes and insisting that troops avoid firing when civilians might be hit during the recent offensive in Helmand Province. One recent press story even referred to a "McChrystal Doctrine" that focuses on "winning over civilians rather than killing insurgents."

RIGHTS: Two-Thirds of Boys in Afghan Jails Are Brutalised, Study Finds

Nearly two of every three male juveniles arrested in Afghanistan are physically abused, according to a study based on interviews with 40 percent of all those now incarcerated in the country's juvenile justice system.

RIGHTS: JSOC Interests Snag Plan to Free Afghan Detainees

An initiative to revise the procedures for reviewing the cases of detainees in order to free marginal insurgents and innocent Afghans has run afoul of the interests of officers of the powerful Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in defending their role in earlier detention decisions.

POLITICS: Afghanistan Spy Contract Goes Sour for Pentagon – Part 1

Mike Furlong, a top Pentagon official, is alleged to have run a covert network of contractors to supply information for drone strikes and assassinations in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the U.S. government.

POLITICS: Policy Battle over Afghan Peace Talks Intensifies

The struggle within the Barack Obama administration over Afghanistan policy entered a new phase when the president suggested at a meeting of his "war cabinet" Friday that it might be time to start negotiations with the Taliban, according to a report in the New York Times Saturday.

POLITICS: Fiction of Marja as City Was U.S. Information War

For weeks, the U.S. public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a "city of 80,000 people" as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central element in the overall impression built up in February that Marja was a major strategic objective, more important than other district centres in Helmand.

AFGHANISTAN: Traffickers Step Up Import of Heroin-Making Chemicals

Drug traffickers are increasing imports of precursor chemicals used for processing opium poppy into heroin and morphine, according to a new State Department report released here Monday.

US-AFGHANISTAN: Habeas Challenges for Bagram Prisoners

Four men who have been imprisoned for over a year – some for almost two years – are going to U.S. federal court to challenge their detention at the notorious Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

POLITICS: Defying U.S., Pakistan Keeps Custody of Baradar

The refusal of Pakistani intelligence to turn over Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and as many as six other top Taliban figures to the United States or the Afghan government has dealt a serious blow to the Barack Obama administration's hopes for Pakistani cooperation in weakening the Taliban.

U.S.: Blackwater’s Migraines Multiply

Legal headaches are growing exponentially for the security firm formerly known as Blackwater – once the darling of the military-industrial community.

U.S.: DynCorp Oversight in Afghanistan Faulted

Afghan police are widely considered corrupt, unable to shoot straight, and die at twice the rate of Afghan soldiers and NATO troops. After seven billion dollars spent on training and salaries in the last eight years, several U.S. government investigations are asking why.

AFGHANISTAN: Marja Offensive Aimed to Shape U.S. Opinion on War

Senior military officials decided to launch the current U.S.-British military campaign to seize Marja in large part to influence domestic U.S. opinion on the war in Afghanistan, the Washington Post reported Monday.

POLITICS: Air Strike on Civilians Reverberates Beyond Afghanistan

Amid growing European discontent over the war in Afghanistan, the head of U.S. and NATO forces apologised Monday for an air strike that killed at least 27 civilians in the central part of the country Sunday.

POLITICS: Jailed Taliban Leader Still a Pakistani Asset

Contrary to initial U.S. suggestions that it signals reduced Pakistani support for the Taliban, the detention of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the operational leader of the Afghan Taliban, represents a shift by Pakistan to more open support for the Taliban in preparation for a peace settlement and U.S. withdrawal.

US-PAKISTAN: Baradar Capture Signals Closer Intelligence Cooperation

The capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar last week in a joint operation conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) represents the most important Taliban leader to be taken into custody since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

U.S.: Mandated Oversight Missing in Afghan Contracts

Lack of oversight of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) contractors in Afghanistan is not a new story.

CANADA: Resistance Casts Pall over 2010 Olympic Festivities

The 2010 Winter Olympics opened with the largest protest convergence in the history of the Games.

AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Regime Pressed bin Laden on anti-U.S. Terror

Evidence now available from various sources, including recently declassified U.S. State Department documents, shows that the Taliban regime led by Mullah Mohammad Omar imposed strict isolation on Osama bin Laden after 1998 to prevent him from carrying out any plots against the United States.

POLITICS: Peace Talks May Follow Ex-Taliban Mediators’ Plan

If peace talks do ultimately begin between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban leadership, they may well follow a "road map" to a political settlement drawn up by a group of ex-Taliban officials who have been serving as intermediaries between the two sides.

AFGHANISTAN: Iraq Lessons Ignored at Kabul Power Plant

A diesel-fueled power plant, nearing completion just outside Kabul, demonstrates that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and its contractors have failed to learn lessons from identical mistakes in Iraq, despite clearly signposted advice from oversight agencies.

POLITICS: US, Karzai Clash on Unconditional Talks with Taliban

On the surface, it would seem unlikely that Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who presides over a politically feeble government and is highly dependent on the U.S. military presence and economic assistance, would defy the United States on the issue of peace negotiations with the leadership of the Taliban insurgency.