A US Army Special Forces soldier facing court-martial proceedings over the killing of an Afghan civilian argued during opening statements that the act was committed in self defense.
A suicide attack targeting a Shi’ite funeral procession in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province as the Ashura holy period draws to a close sparked hours of riots and army intervention.
Gen. David D. McKiernan, top US commander in Afghanistan, said that the heightened troop levels that President Obama ordered for the country could remain in place for up to five years.
President Obama announced the mobilization of 17,000 new troops to Afghanistan, bringing total US troop levels there to 55,000—as a UN report finds that Afghan civilian casualties rose by 40% last year.
A US drone again struck Pakistan’s Tribal Areas, killing some 30—as Pakistan’s government accepted an offer from tribal leaders to instate sharia law in the borderlands in exchange for a pledge to lay down arms.
As Russia marks the 20th anniversary of its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the BBC spoke with veterans of the Soviet military campaign, who have grim words of warning for Washington.
Two missiles fired from a US drone killed more than 30, reportedly including al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, in three compounds in near the Afghan border in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas.
Taliban suicide attacks struck government buildings in Kabul, killing at least 20, on the eve of a scheduled visit by Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Village elders in Afghanistan’s Mehtar Lam district say 22 noncombatants were killed in a US air-raid—the fist controversy over civilian casualties since Barack Obama took office.
Reports from Pakistan indicate that pro-government tribal elder Malik Deen Faraz, his three sons and a grandson were killed in Friday’s US drone strikes in the South Waziristan border region.
Two missile attacks launched from a US drone killed at least 15 in Pakistan, indicating that the strategy of using remote air-strikes to target militants within Pakistan’s borders will continue under President Obama.
CIA director Michael Hayden said Pakistan’s border zone is “no longer a safe haven for al-Qaeda”—days after hundreds of militants attacked a Frontier Corps base, sparking a fierce gun battle that left many dead.
