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.

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.