AFGHANISTAN: Poll Finds Optimism, Amid Political Disenchantment

As debate continues in Washington over what its next steps should be in Afghanistan and as the total of NATO-led coalition deaths in the country approaches 70 for the fourth straight month, a new survey says Afghans are slightly more optimistic about the future of their country than in years past.

AFGHANISTAN: The Cheap Way to Hell

For the last three weeks, 30-year-old Ghulam Nabi has lain in a Kabul hospital bed, suffering. His face is etched with hopelessness, loneliness and despair over the life he once had and has now lost forever.

US-AFGHANISTAN: Kerry Argues for Counterinsurgency Lite

Amid growing speculation and partisan bickering over what President Barack Obama will do about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, an influential Democratic senator Monday warned against deploying tens of thousands more U.S. troops there.

AFGHANISTAN: No Refuge For Victims of Violence

The rate of civilian casualties in Afghanistan during 2009 has increased exponentially if compared with previous years.

AFGHANISTAN: NATO Members in Waiting Mode

Corruption, doubts over Afghan leadership, and faltering public support have emerged as the main stumbling blocks to a demand for more NATO troops in Afghanistan.

DEVELOPMENT-SOUTH ASIA: Women’s Peace Offensive

‘Give peace a chance' may just be another cliché for many, but for women who have suffered the ravages of war, endless strife and other forms of conflict, joining hands to find meaningful solutions to their collective aspiration lends it a whole new meaning.

U.S.: Veteran Army Officer Urges Afghan Troop Drawdown

A veteran Army officer who has served in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars warns in an analysis now circulating in Washington that the counterinsurgency strategy urged by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is likely to strengthen the Afghan insurgency, and calls for withdrawal of the bulk of U.S. combat forces from the country over 18 months.

U.S.: Pro-War Officials Play Up Taliban-al Qaeda Ties

U.S. national security officials, concerned that President Barack Obama might be abandoning the strategy of full-fledged counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, are claiming new intelligence assessments suggesting that al Qaeda would be allowed to return to Afghanistan in the event of a Taliban victory.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/POLITICS: Pakistan’s Offensive, Afghanistan’s Risk

For generations, Pakistan's southern Waziristan region has been a launching pad for insurgent military operations in Afghanistan

CANADA: Harper Courts Religious Right, But Quietly

Stephen Harper's ruling Conservative government has managed to muddy the ideological right-wing aspects of his political agenda to stay in power in Canada without alienating his western and rural base of moral and social conservatives.

POLITICS: U.N. Infighting Threatens to Upstage Afghan War

The increasingly deadly battle between Western military forces and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan is on the verge of being upstaged by a growing political brawl between two senior U.N. officials overseeing the battle-ravaged South Asian nation.

POLITICS-US: Obama Weighs Options as Afghan War Enters Ninth Year

On the eighth anniversary of the launch of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama spent a good part of Wednesday deliberating with his top advisers on what is likely to be one of the most momentous decisions of his tenure: the future of U.S. involvement in that war.

POLITICS-US: Democrats Disgruntled as Obama Fails to Deliver

Since before taking office, U.S. President Barack Obama has been no stranger to being in the crosshairs of Republican pundits who have accused him of everything from bring a "secret communist" to a tax-and-spend liberal who would oversee huge expansions in the federal government.

AFGHANISTAN: Fighting Reinvigorated Taliban Needs Regional Plan

As U.S. military strategists consider whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan, there is little doubt among many Afghans and government officials that the Taliban has resurged with increasing strength and expanded its influence across the country.

US-PAKISTAN: Congress Approves Big Increase in Aid

While the foreign policy debate here has focused primarily on Afghanistan and Iran over the past two weeks, official Washington has been moving to tighten ties with a key neighbour of both countries, Pakistan.

POLITICS: U.N. Chief Weighs in on Iran, Libya and Afghanistan

Addressing his monthly press conference Tuesday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon refused to back a Western endorsement of a premature election victory for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, implicitly criticised Libyan Leader Muammar el-Qaddafi for denigrating the U.N. charter, and faulted Iran for lack of transparency in its nuclear programme.

U.S.: Fears of Blame for Defeat Shadow Afghan War Meetings

In a remarkable parallel with a similar turning point in the Vietnam War 44 years ago, President Barack Obama will preside over a series of meetings in the coming weeks that will determine whether the United States will proceed with an escalation of the Afghanistan War or adjust the strategy to reduce the U.S. military commitment there.

POLITICS: U.S. Afghan Campaign Plan Says Key Groups Back Taliban

The leak of the "initial assessment" of the war in Afghanistan by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander in the war, with its blunt warning that "[f]ailure to provide adequate resources" is likely to result in "mission failure", was part of an obvious effort to force the hand of a reluctant President Barack Obama to agree to a significant increase in U.S. troops.

AFGHANISTAN: Media Outrage Over Coalition Killing of Reporter

For many Afghans, slain Afghan journalist Sultan Munadi has become a symbol for all that is wrong with the United States-led war in Afghanistan.

POLITICS-AFGHANISTAN: Battle for Balkh

Events currently unfolding in Afghanistan's northern province of Balkh may be a preview for the future.

US-AFGHANISTAN: Obama Confronts Democratic Scepticism

Growing scepticism among key Democratic lawmakers about the U.S. commitment to the war in Afghanistan is certain to pose one of the most difficult political challenges faced by President Barack Obama in his first year in office.