IRAQ: ‘Disgraced Soldier’ Fights Trauma With Documentary

A new documentary ‘Diary of a Disgraced Soldier’ follows the dismissal from the British army of an Iraq war veteran and his battle with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) linked to his videographing the brutalising of Iraqi youth by fellow servicemen.

RIGHTS: Court Won’t Rule on Deaths at Guantanamo

A federal district court has thrown out the case of two men who died in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay in 2006 and who are seeking to hold U.S. government officials responsible for the men's torture, arbitrary detention and ultimate deaths.

POLITICS: Jailed Taliban Leader Still a Pakistani Asset

Contrary to initial U.S. suggestions that it signals reduced Pakistani support for the Taliban, the detention of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the operational leader of the Afghan Taliban, represents a shift by Pakistan to more open support for the Taliban in preparation for a peace settlement and U.S. withdrawal.

US-PAKISTAN: Baradar Capture Signals Closer Intelligence Cooperation

The capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar last week in a joint operation conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) represents the most important Taliban leader to be taken into custody since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

US-YEMEN: Clinton Hails Ceasefire, But Aid Concerns Remain

The ceasefire announced late last week between Yemen's government and Houthi rebels in the northern part of the country is being greeted here as an important initial step toward stabilising the Arab world's poorest country and reversing advances by al Qaeda's affiliate there.

RIGHTS: The Seven Paragraphs that Shook US-UK Ties

A British court has ordered the publication of previously secret information that appears to reveal the UK government's complicity with the U.S. in the torture of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was imprisoned by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Regime Pressed bin Laden on anti-U.S. Terror

Evidence now available from various sources, including recently declassified U.S. State Department documents, shows that the Taliban regime led by Mullah Mohammad Omar imposed strict isolation on Osama bin Laden after 1998 to prevent him from carrying out any plots against the United States.

CANADA: Khadr Case Raises Broad Questions on Child Combatants

Ottawa's refusal to repatriate a former child soldier, 23-year-old Omar Khadr, back to Canada to face justice in the country of his birth opens to the door to a trial before a controversial U.S. military commission process that has been challenged for its use of evidence gleaned from interrogation after torture.

YEMEN: Development Recognised as Crucial for Stability

Amid growing concerns here over the threat posed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a consensus is emerging among U.S. experts that Washington and other donors to Yemen must place at least as much or greater emphasis on promoting sustainable development in the Arab world's poorest country as on counterterrorism.

POLITICS: Peace Talks May Follow Ex-Taliban Mediators’ Plan

If peace talks do ultimately begin between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban leadership, they may well follow a "road map" to a political settlement drawn up by a group of ex-Taliban officials who have been serving as intermediaries between the two sides.

RIGHTS: Legal Experts Slam “Targeted Killings” of US Citizens

Civil liberties advocates and legal authorities struck back Friday at what they describe as the "deliberate targeted killing of U.S. citizens far away from any active hostilities, as long as the executive branch determines unilaterally that they meet a secret definition of who the enemy is."

POLITICS: US, Karzai Clash on Unconditional Talks with Taliban

On the surface, it would seem unlikely that Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who presides over a politically feeble government and is highly dependent on the U.S. military presence and economic assistance, would defy the United States on the issue of peace negotiations with the leadership of the Taliban insurgency.

U.S.: Obama Calls for More Development, Counterinsurgency Aid

U.S. President Barack Obama Monday called on Congress to approve major increases over the coming months in global health, development, and counterinsurgency assistance as part of a record 3.8-trillion-dollar 2011 federal budget.

U.S.: New Defence Strategy Envisions Multiple Conflicts

A report and budget request from the U.S. Defence Department released Monday reveal both new and old priorities for President Barack Obama's Pentagon.

US-PAKISTAN: FATA Aid Programme Largely a Flop, Audit Says

A 45-million-dollar programme funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that has been in place for nearly two years in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has failed to develop local government agencies to ensure delivery of basic services, according to an audit by USAID's inspector general.

AFGHANISTAN: US Night Raids and Secret Prisons Anger Civilians

An investigative report published on TomDispatch.com about U.S. forces' operations in Afghanistan paints a gruesome picture of surprise night raids, indiscriminate killing and random detention of civilians during those raids, as well as what appears to be widespread use of torture of Afghan detainees.

U.S.: Obama Faces Increasingly Daunting Picture Overseas

While President Barack Obama's first State of the Union Address Wednesday night will almost certainly focus on the economy, unemployment, and other pressing domestic issues, an increasingly worrisome international situation is likely to be tugging at the back of his mind.

POLITICS: Behind Cautious Signal, a Decision for Afghan Peace Talks

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's very cautiously-worded support for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban leadership in an interview published Monday is only the first public signal of a policy decision by the Barack Obama administration to support a political settlement between the Hamid Karzai regime and the Taliban, an official of McChrystal's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) command has revealed in an interview with IPS.

AFGHANISTAN: In Run-up to Meet, US, Britain Push Reconciliation

On the eve of a major international conference on Afghanistan, senior U.S. and British officials are hinting that they are more open to a political settlement with elements of the Taliban than at any time since Washington helped oust it from power nine years ago.

RIGHTS-US: Indefinite Detention “Defies Common Sense”

U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to detain 47 of the just-under 200 remaining prisoners at Guantánamo without trial indefinitely is drawing scorn from legal experts and human rights advocates, who charge that the government simply does not have enough evidence to convict the detainees it says cannot be tried but are "too dangerous to release."

RIGHTS: Whistleblower Challenges Guantanamo “Suicides”

Is the administration of President Barack Obama concealing evidence suggesting that three suicides at Guantanamo Bay were not suicides at all?