War In Afghanistan, U.s. Troops | featured news

American troops are dying younger, often fresh out of boot camp, and are frequently victims of homemade bombs known as I.E.D.’s.

It was as if the five years of almost ceaseless firefights and ambushes had been a misunderstanding -- a tragic, bloody misunderstanding. More than 40 U.S. soldiers have been killed, and scores more wounded, in helicopter crashes, machine-gun attacks and grenade blasts in the Korengal Valley, a jagged sliver just six miles deep and a half-mile wide. The Afghan death toll has been far higher, making the Korengal some of the bloodiest ground in all of Afghanistan, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.

The military is scrambling to finish what it calls the largest movement of troops and equipment since the buildup of World War ...

Marines and Afghan troops cleared the last major pocket of resistance in the former Taliban-ruled town of Marjah on Saturday ...

U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers advanced through poppy fields of Marjah on Saturday under withering gunfire from Taliban fighters shooting from mudbrick homes and compounds where families huddled in terror.

The Taliban’s familiar display of haphazard and ineffective shooting has been punctuated by the work of what would seem to be several well-trained marksmen.

U.S.-led NATO troops launched a major offensive on Saturday against the Taliban's last big stronghold in Afghanistan's most violent province, a test of President Barack Obama's troop surge strategy.

U.S. Army soldiers launched a major operation Tuesday in support of a planned U.S.-Afghan attack on the largest Taliban-controlled town in southern Afghanistan.

Explosive ordnance disposal troop commander Lt. Caroline Pollock squats by a culvert on a dusty training ground and looks at what appears to be a pile of harmless junk. A plastic jug. Some metal casing. Wiring. All the makings of deadly roadside bombs.

The year's tally was 319, compared with 155 in 2008, due mostly to the crude but ever larger and deadlier roadside bombs built by the Taliban.