Middle East, Afghan War | featured news

Germany says its leader is in Afghanistan to on a surprise visit to the nation's troops serving with NATO's force in a war against Taliban insurgents.

At least 53 people were killed and 90 others wounded Wednesday in an insurgent attack on an Afghanistan governor's compound where Taliban fighters were facing trial, local officials said. Nine insurgents with explosives strapped to their bodies stormed the compound in Farah province, bordering Iran, Reuters reported.

It was a harrowing international debut for Chuck Hagel, whose first trip to Afghanistan as U.S. defense secretary went dramatically off-script and challenged the American narrative about the 11-year-old war.

More than five hundred men marched through the capital of Afghanistan's restive Wardak province on Tuesday in an outburst of anger against U.S. special forces accused of overseeing torture and killings in the area.

A German official is saying Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has told NATO allies that the U.S. will leave between 8,000-12,000 American troops in Afghanistan after 2014, when combat ends.

Civilian deaths in the war in Afghanistan dropped in 2012 for the first time in six years, a sign of lessening hostilities, but insurgents dramatically expanded their campaign of assassinating government supporters, the United Nations said Tuesday.

President Barack Obama will announce in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that 34,000 troops will return from Afghanistan by early 2014, a source familiar with the speech told Reuters.

President Obama awarded the nation's highest military honor Monday to a U.S. soldier who led a counterattack in Afghanistan after he and his comrades were asked to "defend the indefensible."

Taliban leaders in Pakistan are pressing their soldiers in Afghanistan to step up attacks but minimize civilian casualties, a message that is dividing fighters from the leadership and may encourage some to quit the insurgency, a top Pentagon official said.

China, long a bystander to the conflict in Afghanistan, is stepping up its involvement as U.S.-led forces prepare to withdraw, attracted by the country's vast mineral resources but concerned that any post-2014 chaos could embolden Islamist insurgents in its own territory....