Latest

Security turnaround in Afghanistan in 18 months a must: Mullen

24 May 2009
AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US military must "dramatically" stem a three-year slide in the security situation in Afghanistan over the next year and a half to make room for civilian efforts to stabilize the country, the US military chief said Sunday.

Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military solution was not enough but the buildup in US forces would be used to turn around the security situation.

"I think with the troops that we put on the ground there, that over the next 12 to 18 months, we have to dramatically change the security situation and stem the tide," he said.

Read more: Afghanistan: Media Finally Picking Up on Significance of 2010

23 May 2009
 
This photo pushes my laughter button every time it pops up.  You never know what our soldiers are going to do next.  Despite the combat, there is a great deal of humor to be had out there in the war.  The photo even cracked up Secretary Gates.

16 May 2009

By JASON STRAZIUSO

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AP) — Strategically buried in the middle of dirt roads, packed in culverts and attached to trip wires, a heightened hidden danger awaits the thousands of U.S. troops pouring into Afghanistan to fight a tenacious Taliban.

The U.S. military expects a 50 percent spike this year in roadside and suicide bombings, which surpassed the number of similar strikes in Iraq during the spring. These types of bombs killed 172 coalition forces last year — and far more Afghan civilians — according to military figures.

Please Click to Read the entire story from the AP.

Sharia Being Perverted, Pakistanis Say

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 10, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 9 -- When black-turbaned Taliban fighters demanded in January that Islamic sharia law be imposed in Pakistan's Swat Valley, few alarm bells went off in this Muslim nation of about 170 million.

Sharia, after all, is the legal framework that guides the lives of all Muslims.

Officials said people in Swat were fed up with the slow and corrupt state courts, scholars said the sharia system would bring swift justice, and commentators said critics in the West had no right to interfere.

Today, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Swat and Pakistani troops launching an offensive to drive out the Taliban forces, the pendulum of public opinion has swung dramatically. The threat of "Talibanization" is being denounced in Parliament and on opinion pages, and the original defenders of an agreement that authorized sharia in Swat are in sheepish retreat.