Deaths, Afghan War | featured news

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.

Two days after the U.S. military resumed joint operations with Afghan security forces last week following a spate of “insider attacks,” a platoon of American soldiers stopped at an Afghan army checkpoint in a volatile eastern province.

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.

An Afghan policeman shot dead three British soldiers at a checkpoint in southern Helmand province on Sunday, Afghan officials said, the latest in a chain of increasingly frequent rogue killings.

Insurgents shot down a helicopter in Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans, most of them belonging to the Navy SEALs unit that killed Osama bin Laden, U.S. officials said.

A NATO helicopter crashed during an operation against the Taliban near the Afghan capital late Friday night, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office said 31 U.S. troops and seven Afghan soldiers were killed.
A second coalition helicopter was forced to make a precautionary landing in another part of Afghanistan, local officials and a spokesman for the multinational forces said Saturday.

The founder and spiritual figurehead for al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, is dead. President Barack Obama said in an address from the White House that a small team of Americans carried out the operation to kill bin Laden in Pakistan, and that cooperation from Pakistani authorities was crucial.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the high-octane diplomat who spearheaded the end of the Bosnian war and most recently served as the Obama administration's point man in the volatile Afghan-Pakistani war zone, has died, officials said.

There was no sign of enemy fire, but the incident was under investigation, according to a NATO statement.

The American military has not yet confirmed the deaths from Friday’s strike. It would be the worst civilian toll in an attack in almost a year.