AUSTRALIA/US: Afghanistan – Potential Sticking Point For Obama

While change may have come to the United States - as professed by president-elect Barack Obama following his election victory, a result largely welcomed here - Australia’s alliance with the superpower is likely to remain strong.

POLITICS: ‘New US President Must Review Pakistan Policy’

Tensions between the United States and Pakistan - on the eve of the keenly-watched U.S. Presidential elections - accompanying a visit by U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus over unabated air strikes into Pakistani territory bode ill for peace in the region say analysts.

AFGHANISTAN: ‘If Talks With Taliban Bring Peace, I’ll Support It’

Western officials are increasingly turning to new strategies in an effort to stabilise Afghanistan and defeat the insurgency here, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. The various initiatives - from negotiating with the Taliban to arming tribal militias - have differing degrees of support from Afghans.

AFGHANISTAN: Journalist Serving 20 Years for “Blasphemy”

International human rights groups have called on Afghan authorities and President Hamid Karzai to free 24-year-old Afghani journalist Perwiz Kambakhsh, who has been sentenced to 20 years of prison after being convicted of blasphemy.

US/IRAQ: "We Have to Share This Pain"

Veterans from the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with Iraqis, Afghanis, Vietnam veterans, and family members of U.S. military personnel converged in this west coast city over the weekend to share stories of atrocities being committed daily in Iraq, in a continuation of the "Winter Soldier" hearings held in Silver Spring, Maryland in March.

US/AFGHANISTAN: Fears of Blowback Nixed Airstrikes in 2004

The present U.S. policy in Afghanistan of using airstrikes to target local Taliban leaders was rejected by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan in early 2004 as certain to turn the broader population against the U.S. presence.

US/AFGHANISTAN: Moving Towards a 'Grand Bargain'

Increasingly frustrated by the "downward spiral" that the U.S. intelligence community sees in Afghanistan, the Pentagon appears to be moving in support of engaging leaders of the resurgent Taliban who are prepared to disassociate themselves from al-Qaeda.

POLITICS: Afghan Peace Talks Widen US-UK Rift on War Policy

The beginning of political talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban revealed by press accounts this week is likely to deepen the rift that has just erupted in public between the United States and its British ally over the U.S. commitment to an escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

U.S.: Pakistan "Greatest Single Challenge" to Next President

Calling Pakistan the "greatest single challenge" to the next U.S. administration, a bipartisan group of South Asia experts recommends cutting aid to the Pakistani army unless it commits itself to the counter-insurgency struggle against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Q&A: "Mistakes Will Continue to Happen When There Isn’t Transparency"

Not many people want to spend time at Guantánamo Bay. But while studying law at the University of Miami in 2005, Mahvish Rukhsana Khan became outraged to learn of the lack of rights afforded detainees in the "war on terror" and was keen to get involved.

AFGHANISTAN: Subsidised Fuel Trail Winds Back to Pakistan

In a teeming petrol market on the outskirts of Kabul, black market traders sell fuel to everyone from individual customers to large business groups. Although much of this petrol comes from Iran or the Central Asian countries, a good amount also hails from Pakistan, where government subsidies have made the fuel much cheaper than in Afghanistan.

PAKISTAN: Tax Payers Pay for Subsidised Fuel to Afghanistan

Petrol pumps in Pakistan’s border regions do brisk business. Jerry cans of fuel are carried both clandestinely and openly across the porous frontier for sale in neighbouring Afghanistan.

POLITICS-US: Bush Had No Plan to Catch Bin Laden after 9/11

New evidence from former U.S. officials reveals that the George W. Bush administration failed to adopt any plan to block the retreat of Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders from Afghanistan to Pakistan in the first weeks after 9/11.

PAKISTAN: ‘Militants Are Not Taliban, We Are’

The world knows the Taliban as armed fighters who have unleashed a wave of violence in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan including devastating suicide bomb attacks, the most recent on the luxurious Marriot Hotel in high-security Islamabad last week.

POLITICS-PAKISTAN: No Military Solutions to Suicide Bombings

Political analysts have long been warning the United States and Pakistan governments that there are no easy military solutions in prosecuting the global ‘war on terror’ which may now have become inextricable from ‘home-grown’ militancy.

AFGHANISTAN: Severe Hunger Can Help Taliban

If 11-year old Zayainullah doesn't bring home enough money today, he says he will get beaten. "We don't have food and my aunt threatened me, saying I have to bring back enough money to buy bread," he says.

POLITICS-US: Vested Interests Drove New Pakistan Policy

The George W. Bush administration's decision to launch commando raids and step up missiles strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda figures in the tribal areas of Pakistan followed what appears to have been the most contentious policy process over the use of force in Bush's eight-year presidency.

AUSTRALIA: Winning ‘Hearts and Minds’ in Afghanistan?

Responses by defence officials in the wake of a recent inquiry into claims that Australian soldiers mistreated detainees in Afghanistan undermine efforts to win the battle for hearts and minds in that war-ravaged country.

POLITICS-US: Intel Council Warned Against Raids in Pakistan

The National Intelligence Council, the U.S. intelligence community's focal point for estimating future developments, warned the George W. Bush administration last month that a decision to launch commando raids by U.S. troops against al Qaeda-related targets in Pakistan's North-West Frontier region would carry a high risk of further destabilising the Pakistani military and government, according to sources familiar with the intelligence community's response to the issue.

AFGHANISTAN: US-NATO Airstrikes Bring Higher Civilian Toll

Ramped-up U.S. and NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan are causing an increased civilian death toll, raising concerns about the fallout from civilian deaths on the war effort against the Taliban insurgency, according to a major new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) released here Monday.

US/PAKISTAN: Raid May Herald More Confrontational Policy

An apparent raid into Pakistani territory by U.S. forces stationed in Afghanistan has prompted angry denunciations from Pakistani officials and renewed questions about the future of the war against the Taliban in the region.