Barely a month after the last US combat troops walked out of Iraq, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday that they would be altering already established plans in Afghanistan and doing the same there in a matter of months. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday announced that American combat troops will plan to vacate the nation of Afghanistan in 2013, a decision that contradicts a long-standing... 

Locked up: Gulnaz is in Kabul's Badam Bagh jail, serving out her sentence with her rapist's child An Afghan woman raped by her cousin’s husband has revealed how she is faced with a horrific dilemma – marry him or spend the next 12 years in jail. Gulnaz was aged just 19 when she was convicted by a court of adultery, even though she tried to prevent the attack. Now she is in Kabul’s... 

A scathing report authored by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the United States President’s role in protecting the Afghanistan drug trade essentially labels Barack Obama as the most powerful drug cartel leader our world has ever known. Speaking at a conference this week on communicable diseases Lavrov lashed out over Obama’s refusal to eradicate Afghanistan’s poppy crop and stated,... 

An Afghan soldier stands guard near a burnt out NATO tanker, which was carrying fuel in the Behsud district of Nangarhar Province, east of Kabul. Taliban militants have attacked 15 NATO supply vehicles transporting fuel destined for US-led forces and set them on fire in Afghanistan’s western province of Farah, Press TV reports. A group of unidentified armed men opened fire on the tankers in Bakwa... 

Denies Plan for ‘Permanent Bases’. Speaking today in his first comments after being sworn in, new US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker insisted that the US is in “no rush” to leave the country, which it has occupied militarily for nearly 10 years. “We must proceed carefully,” Crocker insisted, “there will be no rush for the exits.” The Obama Administration announced a... 

Officials at Afghanistan's Kandahar prison show the tunnel through which 480 prisoners, including Taliban commanders, escaped. It may not have been Stalag Luft III, but the escape from Sarpoza prison in Kandahar was pretty ingenious. Kandahar’s prison may not be Stalag Luft III but in terms of ingenuity, organisation and sheer cunning the successful break-out by at least 480 Taliban prisoners... 

A helicopter used by the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan crashed in the northeastern province of Kapisa. A helicopter used by the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan has crashed in the northeastern province of Kapisa as the attacks against US-led troops surge in the war-torn country. Afghan officials said Saturday that the NATO chopper crashed at 4:00 a.m. local time in Afghanistan’s Kapisa province,... 

Afghan fears of proselytizing have been brought on by the influx of foreigners since the U.S.-led invasion. Demonstrators protested against Christian organizations in Mazar-i-Sharif in June 2010. The jail commander had remained silent as the prisoner, Sayed Mussa, told a reporter about his journey from Islam to Christianity: his secret baptism nine years earlier, his faith in Jesus Christ and the promise... 

President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai The U.S. said Iran shouldn’t interfere with Afghanistan’s internal affairs following a report that an Iranian official gave an aide of President Hamid Karzai a bag filled with packets of euro bills. “We understand that Iran and Afghanistan are neighbors and will have a relationship,” Philip J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said in an e-mailed... 

Stunning potential: Afghanistan has nearly $1 trillion in untouched mineral deposits including lithium. JACKPOT! The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. The previously... 

KABUL – The Taliban has threatened to step up attacks against Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan if Geert Wilders releases his “insulting” anti-Islam film. The PVV MP’s film is an “insult to Islam”, says Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Taliban, in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location. “We in Afghanistan shall step up the attacks against the...