POLITICS: U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans

President Barack Obama and other top officials in his administration have made it clear that there can be no military solution in Afghanistan, and that the non-military efforts to win over the Afghan population will be central to its chances of success.

POLITICS: Errant Drone Attacks Spur Militants in Pakistan

The U.S. programme of drone aircraft strikes against higher-ranking officials of al Qaeda and allied militant organisations, which has been touted by proponents as having eliminated nine of the 20 top al Qaeda leaders, is actually weakening Pakistan’s defence against the insurgency of the Islamic militants there by killing large numbers of civilians based on faulty intelligence and discrediting the Pakistani military, according to data from the Pakistani government and interviews with senior analysts.

ENVIRONMENT-AFGHANISTAN: Smog Adds to Kabul’s Hazards

On any given day, a pall of smog and dust hangs over Kabul's streets. It clings to the face, burns the eyes, and stains the hands. It bathes the cars, often stuck bumper-to-bumper in traffic, and occludes the view of the distant mountains.

POLITICS-US: New Budget, Not Quite a Fundamental Shift

Secretary of Defence Robert Gates unveiled the U.S.’s much-anticipated new military budget Monday, which aims to reorient the armed forces toward irregular and counterinsurgency warfare while proposing cuts in several major weapons programs.

EUROPE: Scrambling to get it Right on Afghanistan

As NATO prepares to celebrate its 60th year, Europe's somewhat fractured Afghanistan policy, which will feature large in discussions at the organisation's anniversary summit this weekend, needs to improve significantly if it is to gain any credibility in the region, say policy experts in Brussels.

RIGHTS: U.S. Judge Gives Bagram Prisoners Right to Appeal

In what could become an historic decision, a federal judge has ruled that non-Afghan citizens rendered by the U.S. to Bagram prison in Afghanistan have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

PAKISTAN: Another Terror Attack For TV Cameras

The brazen armed attack on a police academy near Lahore on Monday underlines the danger that the Pakistani state faces from militancy linked to the ‘war on terror', but with historic roots in the earlier Afghan war of liberation from Soviet occupation, or ‘jihad' against ‘God-less communists'.

PAKISTAN: Under Siege by Taliban

Authorities in Pakistan have vowed to deal sternly with Taliban militants who have this month mounted a series of deadly attacks apparently aimed at weakening this country that has close links with neighbouring Afghanistan.

POLITICS-US: Some Strategists Cast Doubt on Afghan War Rationale

The argument for deeper U.S. military commitment to the Afghan War invoked by President Barack Obama in his first major policy statement on Afghanistan and Pakistan Friday - that al Qaeda must be denied a safe haven in Afghanistan - has not been subjected to public debate in Washington.

U.S.: Obama Affirms New Focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan

In what marks a significant escalation in U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Barack Obama Friday outlined what he called a "comprehensive, new strategy" for the two countries to fight al Qaeda and its local allies.

POLITICS-US: Neo-Con Ideologues Launch New Foreign Policy Group

A newly-formed and still obscure neo-conservative foreign policy organisation is giving some observers flashbacks to the 1990s, when its predecessor staked out the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy that came to fruition under the George W. Bush administration.

AFGHANISTAN: Long Drought Raises Spectre of Famine

The battle to contain the growing political and military turmoil in Afghanistan may be temporarily overshadowed by an impending threat to millions of people in that strife-torn country: food shortages and starvation.

US-AFGHANISTAN: McKiernan Gets Control of Disputed Raids

U.S. Special Operations forces in Afghanistan, whose commando raids and airstrikes against suspected Taliban targets have caused large numbers of civilian casualties that have angered Afghans, have quietly been put under the "tactical control" of the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, for the first time.

RELIGION-PAKISTAN: Bombing Closes Shrine Off For Women

Few women are visiting the mausoleum of the famous 17th century mystic poet Abdul Rehman Baba since suspected Pakistani Taliban bombed it.

AUSTRALIA: Pressured to Do More in Afghanistan

With the internecine battle among some of the 42 contributing nations to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) over burden-sharing in Afghanistan continuing, the Australian government is giving little away about its intentions regarding an expected request for more troops.

U.S.: Plan to Split Taliban Lures Obama Deeper into War

Advanced reports on the Barack Obama administration’s strategy to "peel off" a majority of insurgent commanders from the "hard core" of Taliban suggest that it will be presented as a political route to victory in Afghanistan that would not require U.S. and NATO troops to win militarily.

POLITICS: Perils Seen in Obama’s Afghan Strategy

With official announcements about a new strategy for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan expected in the coming weeks, details of the plan are starting to emerge in press accounts which describe a renewed focus on the war-torn Central Asian country and its volatile neighbour, Pakistan.

AFGHANISTAN: ‘Jihadis suffocate our voices’

Afghanistan has one of the highest percentages of female lawmakers in the world but their voices are rarely heard. A new political party, National Need, devoted to women's rights, has announced plans to run for the next parliamentary polls. IPS spoke to its head, Fatima Nazari, member of parliament (MP) from Kabul province.

AFGHANISTAN: Women Lawmakers Battle Warlords

Whenever lawmaker Fatima Nazari rose to speak, she says the parliament’s chair snubbed her. Whenever one of her female colleagues made a suggestion, it was brushed aside. Sometimes certain notorious warlords would speak multiple times before a female member of parliament (MP) could speak once.

U.S.: Military Dominance in Mideast Proven a Costly Myth

The arguments for maintaining a major U.S. combat force in Iraq at least through 2011, escalating U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and assuming a confrontational stance toward Iran appear to assume that the United States remains the dominant military power in the region.

SOUTH ASIA: Terrorists Aim for Destabilisation, Media Attention

South Asia seems to be caught in a vortex of violence as the countries that form this region - from Sri Lanka at the southern-most tip, Bangladesh to the east, Nepal crowning the north, Pakistan along the west and India in the middle - deal with internal nightmares that their governments routinely blame on neighbours.