Middle East, U.s. Marines | featured news

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.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, scrambling to keep his U.S. presidential bid alive, accused the Obama administration on Sunday of over-reacting to a videotape that shows four Marines appearing to urinate on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has condemned a video that apparently shows U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Afghan men, promising to punish those involved. Earlier, an Afghan Taliban spokesman said the video will not affect efforts to broker peace talks.

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.

A nine-hour journey covering one mile reveals the danger and complexity of U.S. Marines' effort to wrest control of Marjah from the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Thousands of U.S. Marines poured from helicopters and armored vehicles into Taliban-controlled villages in southern Afghanistan ...