Afghanistan, Nato | featured news

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.

A squad of nine suicide bombers attacked a major U.S.-Afghan air base in the eastern city of Jalalabad just after dawn Sunday, exploding bombs at the front gate and sparking a lengthy firefight with both Afghan and NATO forces inside.

President Barack Obama called Monday for NATO countries to sign off on his exit strategy from Afghanistan that calls for an end to combat operations next year and the withdrawal of the U.S.-led international military force by the end of 2014.

It was what President Barack Obama called a "war of necessity," a conflict thrust upon America by the 9/11 attacks. As NATO's mission here winds down nearly 11 years later, the insurgents remain undefeated, corruption runs rife and the peace process is stuck in the sand.

Already tense U.S. and NATO ties with Afghanistan were dealt another blow on Wednesday with photographs appearing in an American newspaper of U.S. soldiers posing with the maimed bodies of dead Afghan insurgents.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday said he was considering bringing forward by a year the presidential election set for 2014 to reduce the pressure on the conflict-plagued country during the period when majority of NATO coalition troops are scheduled to withdraw.

Robotic helicopters capable of ferrying 3.5 tons of cargo in a single load are at work supplying NATO troops in Afghanistan, according to a defense technology blog. The helicopter is a Lockheed Martin / Kaman Aerospace K-Max designed for battlefield cargo resupply.

Taliban members who agree to stop fighting are being paid 100 pounds per month in an attempt to reduce attacks against NATO troops in Afghanistan, a newspaper says.

NATO says 13 service members have been killed in a suicide car bombing in Kabul.

General David Petraeus, the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, handed over command of U.S. and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan on Monday, a day after a gradual process of transferring security to Afghan forces began.