Wars | featured news

Afghanistan expects to remain dependent on international economic assistance until 2025, according to projections President Hamid Karzai will deliver to global partners at a conference here Monday. Together with ongoing costs to support the Afghan army and police forces, at least $10 billion in assistance will be required annually after the scheduled departure of foreign combat forces by the end of 2014.

Syria is now in a state of civil war with more than 4,000 dead and increasing numbers of defecting soldiers taking up arms against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, the top United Nations human rights official said on Thursday.

"They're asking for RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) in al Bayadah," said the young fighter, naming another district in Homs. "Assad's armoured vehicles are coming and they have nothing to stop them." "Give them five or six of ours. God willing we will find some more," replied the man in charge, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Film star Mila Kunis has made good on her promise to a Marine who had been serving in Afghanistan. Kunis and Marine Sgt. Scott Moore attended the annual Marine Corps Ball on Friday in Greenville, N.C. The annual event marks the founding of the Marines in 1775.

Army Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs has been sentenced to life in military prison with eligibility for parole in 10 years. A military court-martial Thursday found Gibbs guilty of murdering three Afghan civilians, illegally cutting off pieces of their corpses to keep as "souvenirs" and planting weapons to make the men appear as if they were Taliban fighters killed in legitimate firefights.

Russia is inching closer to the globalization trade club. Its membership in the World Trade Organization could be locked if it succeeds in convincing its neighboring country, Georgia, to forgive the Kremlin for the Ossetia War in 2008. So far, Georgia is the only thing standing between Russia and the World Trade Organization.

ibya's transitional government picked an engineering professor and longtime exile as its acting prime minister Monday, with the new leader pledging to respect human rights and international law.

For the past 10 years, the United States has engaged in constant warfare. Does that mean the next 10 years will be the same, even after U.S. combat troops are out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Put it a different way: We have spent trillions of dollars to create the most professional and powerful military force in the world to fight those wars. It continues to cost hundreds of billions more each year to help sustain this all-volunteer force.

After seven months of an aerial bombing campaign that helped depose longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi, NATO officially ends its mission in Libya on Monday.

Doctors completed the autopsy of Moammar Gadhafi on Sunday, with the chief pathologist confirming the former Libyan leader died of a gunshot wound to the head.