Middle East, Afghanistan | featured news

New Zealand’s government said on Monday that it would probably speed up the withdrawal of its small contingent of troops from Afghanistan.

At least 3 Americans are among the dead. The cause of the crash is being investigated. The NATO-led international military coalition says a helicopter crash in Afghanistan has killed 11 people including seven international service members.

A gunman wearing an Afghan uniform has shot to death three American troops in the southern Helmand province, according to the U.S.-led international military coalition in the country, known as ISAF. U.S. officials told CBS News correspondent David Martin that the three slain troops were members of a Marine special operations force. Afghan sources in Helmand told CBS News Kabul bureau chief Fazul Rahim that they were part of a team overseeing the training and recruitment of Afghan local police. The sources said it was one of the police officers who opened fire on his mentors during dinner on Thursday evening. ISAF has not yet confirmed these details.

Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak resigned on Tuesday after losing a no-confidence vote in parliament, leaving President Hamid Karzai scrambling to find a replacement for one of his top security tsars as insurgent attacks mount.

Afghanistan's parliament voted on Saturday to dismiss both the interior and defense ministers over continued cross-border shelling which the Afghan government has blamed on neighboring Pakistan's army, as well as other issues.

A spokesman for the National Guard Association of the United States told The State that Michael Haley may be the first spouse of a sitting governor to be deployed into a combat zone. Nikki Haley, 40, is a Republican who assumed office in 2011. She has been discussed as a potential vice presidential pick for Mitt Romney and hit the campaign trail days ago for the presumptive GOP nominee.

The interior minister says the initial investigation into a bombing at a wedding hall suggests the Taliban and terrorists were responsible.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a wedding reception in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing at least 22 people including a prominent politician, and wounding 40 others, police said.

Moving the mountain of U.S. military gear out of Afghanistan after more than a decade of war will cost billions of dollars and prove far more difficult than last year's withdrawal from Iraq, the Pentagon's No. 2 official said Tuesday.

Donor nations meeting at a conference on aid to Afghanistan here Sunday pledged $16 billion over the next four years for civilian projects from roads to schools to strengthening rule of law, in exchange for pledges from the Afghan government to combat corruption.