POLITICS: Suspicion of U.S. Found Pervasive in Islamic World

Six and a half years after U.S. President George W. Bush launched his "global war on terror", suspicion of U.S. motives remains pervasive throughout the Islamic world, according to a new and highly detailed survey of four countries released here Tuesday.

THEATRE-U.S.: Iraq, Afghanistan War Vets Find Relief in the Footlights

The house lights go down and the stage lights come up on "The Wolf", the first production of VetStage, a non-profit theatre company run by veterans of the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It opens with a funeral: a Roman Catholic priest preparing to deliver a eulogy for a U.S. soldier killed by a road-side bomb.

Q&A: ‘Taliban Back Due to Karzai’s Poor Strategic Vision’

Former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah warns that the government of President Hamid Karzai suffers from "shortcomings in strategic vision" that are contributing to a deteriorating security situation in an ethnically diverse country.

AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Executes Freed Italian Scribe’s Colleague

A young Afghan journalist, who was abducted along with the freed Italian journalist Danielle Mastrogiacomo in southern Afghanistan by Taliban militants, was killed 48 hours ahead of the expiry of a deadline for negotiations issued to the government.

PAKISTAN: Military Ruler ‘Floored’ by Burqa Brigade

For a tough military ruler, who in recent weeks removed the chief justice from office and allowed police raids on leading newspapers, Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf appears curiously paralysed by roving bands of the ‘burqa brigade' - veiled female religious scholars armed with sticks and ready to enforce Shariah (Islamic law).

PAKISTAN: ‘Missing Teenagers Lured by Islamist Militants’

"I am in search of my son, who went missing three months ago from the neighbourhood. We are told that he is in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Taliban," said Gul Afzal, a resident of Ghareebabad hamlet in Mardan, North Western Frontier Province (NWFP).

AFGHANISTAN: Journalists Appeal for Release of Kidnapped Colleague

Afghan and Italian press associations appealed Wednesday for the Islamic Taliban movement to release Afghan journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi, who was kidnapped on Mar. 5.

AFGHANISTAN: Media, Civil Society Stake Bold Claim as Leaders

Scan the pages of major newspapers around the world and the only news coming out of Afghanistan is about bomb blasts and the escalating conflict between the Taliban and NATO forces in the country's south.

PAKISTAN: Security Concerns Force Afghan Refugees to Stay

"Lack of security in Afghanistan is the main obstacle standing in the way of our going back," said an Afghan vegetable-seller, straddling a muddy narrow lane in Kacha Garhi, the oldest refugee camp in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), with a push-cart.

HEALTH-US: Top Army Hospital Swamped by Tide of Wounded

As a nine-member commission prepares to investigate allegations of ineptitude at the United States' largest and most prestigious military hospital, politicians in Washington are waiting to see if any more colleagues associated with the scandal will lose their jobs.

RIGHTS-US: Guilty Plea Won’t Dampen Gitmo Controversy

As Australian David Hicks awaits sentencing after being the first Guantanamo detainee convicted under the Military Commissions Act, human rights groups, legal scholars and some lawmakers are condemning the entire MCA process and again challenging its constitutionality both in the courts and in the U.S. Congress.

CANADA: Development Aid as Counterinsurgency Tool

A soon to be completed Canadian Forces counter-insurgency field manual foreshadows the type of interventions that the military in this country is preparing for the coming decades, according to a draft edition obtained by IPS.

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN: Shifting Stakes, Partners

The crisis precipitated by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's summary sacking of Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry shows no sign of abating. The resignations of a number of judges and of deputy attorney general Nasir Saeed Sheikh seem to have strengthened the agitation launched by Pakistani lawyers. Various political parties are preparing to jump into the fray.

AFGHANISTAN: Amnesty Law Condones Warlords’ Past Abuse

A new law granting amnesty and legal protection from prosecution to Afghan commanders accused of committing war atrocities has shifted the burden of proof for the two and a half decades of grave abuses to the Afghan public.

CANADA: Counterinsurgency Manual Shows Military’s New Face

Following closely behind their counterparts in the United States and Britain, Canada's Department of National Defence is preparing a comprehensive counter-insurgency field manual for its soldiers and officers.

AFGHANISTAN: ‘Double Standards’ Boost Taliban

Military forces from Western powers are fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, but it is the policies of these very governments that is boosting the Taliban, going by several indications over recent days.

AFGHANISTAN: Italian Scribe Swapped for Five Taliban Prisoners

Freed Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo returned to Kabul Tuesday after being in Taliban custody for 15 days on charges of "spying" for the British.

AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Give Italy Three Days for Italian Reporter

The Taliban may have sent their clearest signal about the fate of abducted Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo by executing his driver, preceded by a taped warning that the Italian government has "only two days to save his life by starting negotiations."

AFGHANISTAN: Italy Talks With Taliban Over Abducted Journalist

A day after an Italian journalist kidnapped in Afghanistan appeared in a video, shown over television, appealing to Prime Minister Romano Prodi to work for his release, both the Italian Embassy in Kabul and the Taliban have confirmed they are in negotiations.

PAKISTAN: Taliban Writ Runs in Border Areas

"Shaving beard isn't done here. Contact only for hair cut", reads a sign pasted outside the entrance of a barber's shop in Upper Dir, a rugged and mountainous district in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) that borders Afghanistan.

AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Kidnapping Motivated by ‘Press Freedom’?

The Taliban, the Islamist movement that dominated Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 and now is an outlawed rebel force, showed a new political facet when it kidnapped an Italian journalist this week.