Taliban, War On Terror | featured news

U.S. counterterrorism officials believe Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mahsud is dead following a missile attack last month, a senior intelligence official said Wednesday in the strongest signal that Washington has offered about the militant's fate.

The Afghan government on Thursday invited the Taliban to a peace council as its Western allies worked out plans to try to end the war in Afghanistan.

After explosions and gun battles rock Kabul for three hours, President Karzai says order is restored. The attack is launched on the day that confirmed Cabinet members are sworn in.

KABUL — Taliban militants struck in the heart of the Afghan capital today, launching suicide attacks on key government targets in a clear sign the insurgents plan to escalate their fight as the U.S. and its allies ramp up a campaign to end the war.

American missiles struck twice in the tribal region that is a stronghold of Qaeda and Taliban militants.

The Pakistani Taliban claims they used a turncoat CIA operative for the suicide bombing that killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan as revenge for a militant leader's death.

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.

The defense bill that President Barack Obama will sign into law on Wednesday contains a new provision that would pay Taliban fighters who renounce the insurgency, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said on Tuesday.

Pakistan's army said it killed 60 "terrorists" as it battles to wrest control of part of the country from the Taliban. Five soldiers were killed in the last 24 hours of the assault, the military said.

Ground troops attack militant positions in South Waziristan, a response to a wave of violence that extremists launched in the past two weeks.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani troops launched a long-awaited ground offensive into the Taliban and Al Qaeda stronghold of South Waziristan today, beginning what experts say will be the country's most challenging chapter yet in the ongoing war on terror.