IRAQ-AFGHANISTAN: Overlooking the Air War

On Jun. 18, seven children were killed during a U.S.-led air strike against a suspected al Qaeda sanctuary in eastern Afghanistan. Three days later, at least 25 civilians died during a similar "incident" in Helmand province in the south of the country.

CULTURE-AFGHANISTAN: Young Musicians Revive Classical Heritage

Bombs and rockets may have reduced Afghanistan’s cultural heart to rubble, but it has not completely destroyed a people’s centuries-old love of classical Hindustani music.

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Afghan Refugees Forcibly Herded Home – Activists

While heavy seasonal rains that damaged bridges on the road to Afghanistan have forced the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to suspend repatriation operations, Pakistan’s frontier police has announced intensification of efforts to send back 'illegal' Afghans.

POLITICS-US: Bush Shielding of Musharraf Policy at Risk

The growing crisis over Islamic extremism in Pakistan is drawing attention to the complicity of that country's military government in the rise of the biggest haven for Islamic terrorism in the world.

POLITICS: Opium Production Still Climbing, UN Says

While some encouraging advancements have been made to contain a global drug epidemic, opium production in Afghanistan's southern provinces continues to climb, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported Tuesday.

AFGHANISTAN: Soviet-Era Weapons Handy for Taliban

While United States officials accuse Iran of arming a resurgent Taliban, officials here say the weapons are actually part of vast caches left behind by the Soviet army that fought a nine-year war in Afghanistan before withdrawing in 1988.

AFGHANISTAN: Afghans Blast Karzai Over Coalition Killings

A day after an agitated President Hamid Karzai reprimanded foreign troops for unnecessary civilian deaths, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) shot dead one Afghan and wounded two others in retaliation for a roadside blast that damaged their vehicle.

U.S.-IRAN: New Arms Claim Reveals Cheney-Military Rift

In a development that underlines the tensions between the anti-Iran agenda of the George W. Bush administration and the preoccupation of its military command in Afghanistan with militant Sunni activism, a State Department official publicly accused Iran for the first time of arming the Taliban forces last week, but the U.S. commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan rejected that charge for the second time in less than two weeks.

HEALTH-US: Surviving War, Slowly Dying at Home

The U.S. Vets Westside Residence Hall is a hulking eight-story structure a few blocks from Los Angeles International Airport. It's the largest transitional housing and employment centre for homeless veterans in the country, hosting 700 veterans annually.

POLITICS-US: Cheney&#39s Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed

A media campaign portraying Iran as supplying arms to the Taliban guerrillas fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, orchestrated by advocates of a more confrontational stance toward Iran in the George W. Bush administration, appears to have backfired last week when Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeil, issued unusually strong denials.

HEALTH-PAKISTAN: ‘War on Terror’ Cripples Border Hospitals

Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) extends 27,220 sq km along the Afghanistan border and has been the target of a series of debilitating U.S. missile attacks since 2005.

AFGHANISTAN: Return of the Uzbek Warlord

The ugly riots and police firing that resulted in the deaths of at least a dozen people in northern Jowzjan province in the last week of May are being seen as signs of rebellion against the government of President Hamid Karzai by the warlord Gen. Abdorrrashid Dostum and his Uzbek community.

CANADA: Afghan Strategy Sharpens Ideological Divide

United Nations-style peacekeeping is getting a bad rap these days within Canada's military, 60 years after then Prime Minister Lester Pearson came up with the idea of mediating the Suez Crisis following the British-French-Israel attack on Egypt.

AFGHANISTAN: Poppy Fields Offer Jobs as Fighting Rages

While intense fighting rages around Afghanistan's famed poppy fields in the south, thousands of poor, jobless youths have poured in to embattled Helmand province to lance the lush-green poppy bulbs that promise massive yields of opium this year.

EU-AFGHANISTAN: A Country Seen as a Drugs Factory

When archive material showing Osama bin Laden hiding in an underground fortress is aired on Western news bulletins, the perception that Afghanistan is a lawless periphery is reinforced.

HEALTH-US: Suicidal and Facing a Third Tour in Iraq

At the beginning of May, Corporal Cloy Richards tried to kill himself.

IRAN: Afghan Refugees – Pawns in Standoff with West

As the Iranian regime firmly implements a plan to repatriate the bulk of an estimated one million Afghan refugees living illegally on its soil, it is apparent that the move is aimed at embarrassing the West over its failures in the region.

US-AFGHANISTAN: Deaths Mount with No End in Sight

While attention among policy-makers in Washington remains focused on Iraq, the war in Afghanistan has become an ongoing struggle to keep the country from deteriorating into a failed state.

ENERGY-CENTRAL ASIA: Wrangling Over Pipelines Wrecks Early Prospects

A combination of East-West geopolitical rivalries and haggling between former Soviet republics is delaying the construction of a series of oil and gas pipelines that could help alleviate the world's future energy supply concerns.

AFGHANISTAN: Coalition Killings Spark Furious Street Protests

Angry protests have erupted in two Afghan provinces against killings of civilians in military operations by coalition troops on Taliban targets.

CANADA: Afghan Prison Torture Scandal Rocks Military

Canadian General Rick Hillier and Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor have dismissed calls that they be investigated for war crimes over Canada's role in handing over to Afghan security forces detainees who were subsequently tortured.