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"Finish the Job," an ad featuring eight veterans and one blue star mother—VFF members all. The ad was previewed Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos and will be the first television ad to air during our “Four Months, For Victory” campaign. The over $1 million ad buy will begin running in select markets on Wednesday, July 9th.

WASHINGTON, July 6, 2008 – Coalition and Afghan forces killed more than a dozen enemy fighters, captured two others and seized a weapons cache in Afghanistan the past three days, military officials said. Combined forces killed an unknown number of militants yesterday in a precision airstrike aimed at a large group of enemy fighters on a mountain range in the Deh Bala district of Nangarhar province. During operations in Afghanistan July 4, troops killed more than a dozen militants following an attack on a combat outpost in Nuristan province. Troops at the outpost observed militants firing at coalition positions. Ground...

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 6, 2008 – More than 50 U.S. sailors rendered a salute as their nation’s colors were raised over Camp Eggers in honor of America’s Independence Day. What made the ceremony so special was the American flag had only 48 stars. Retired Navy Cmdr. Joseph Agra III (left), Afghan National Army Air Corps logistics mentor, reads a citation regarding an American flag with 48 stars that was raised during a ceremony July 4, 2008, at Camp Eggers in Kabul, Afghanistan. Agra acquired the flag in 2000 after a fisherman retrieved it from the water off the coast...

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 6, 2008 – U.S. servicemembers assigned to the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan celebrated America's 232nd Independence Day in the traditional way, but in a non-traditional setting. A soldier prepares to shoot a jump shot during the three-on-three basketball tournament held at Camp Eggers in Kabul, AfghanistanJuly 4, 2008. Servicemembers participated in a myriad of traditional Fourth of July events including a horseshoe tournament, dunk tank and a pie-eating contest. Defense Dept. photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Shawn Graham, USN  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Serving thousands of miles away from home in a warzone,...

Republican John McCain, who has made support for President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, is getting from help from a veterans group that's launching a national TV ad campaign next week. Vets for Freedom is spending $1.5 million on ads that will run on national cable television and in five states in July _ the first set of ads in a multimillion dollar campaign in coming months touting the troop buildup, Pete Hegseth, the 25,000-member group's chairman, said in a telephone interview Saturday. Aimed at "informing the American people about the truth regarding progress...

Excerpt: SEOUL - South Korean police said Friday they have arrested members of a major drug-trafficking ring with suspected links to Afghanistan's Taleban insurgents. ‘Police have rounded up a drug-trafficking ring involving Afghans andPakistanis who are suspected of being linked with the Taleban,’ a National Police Agency spokesman told AFP. ‘They are suspected to trying to smuggle raw materials for heroin production into Afghanistan,’ he said. Police said two Afghans, three Pakistanis and four Koreans tried to use South Korea as a shipping point for several tons of acetic anhydride destined for southern Afghanistan. The chemical is heated with morphine,...

WHEN Peter Leahy joined the Australian Army 37 years ago, our soldiers were highly proficient in counterinsurgency warfare. Coming out of the New Guinea campaign in World War II, the army had been engaged continuously in unconventional conflict, including the Malayan emergency in the 1950s and confrontation with Indonesia in the early 1960s, followed by Vietnam. Nearly four decades on, the army is back in the counterinsurgency game in Afghanistan, acquiring new war-fighting skills. Army planners are now writing a new counterinsurgency doctrine that embraces a wholly different battlefield to that experienced in the jungles of South Vietnam. Lieutenant-General Leahy,...

Today, Bill and I talked about the Khyber Pass, the latest in Iran, the Baluchis, the Kurds and all the latest over at Long War Journal, Bill broke down the X’s and O’s of the fight with the Sadrists and how Iraqi forces uncovered a Special Groups HQ in Amara—this used to be heavy AQ turf. Additionally we did the mailbag, with an emailer who asked about COIN and the Sons Of Iraq. Hear the episode at CovertRadioShow.com

Jay and I have been bantering the 'Joe Horn' case, discussing various aspects of it and what it means to the greater society. Along the way, Jay mentioned the concept of 'duty to retreat'. The concept is based on the idea that when faced with an aggressor, a person has a moral duty to avoid confrontation, to give up ground and back away. That when a criminal gets it in his head that he wants to take something, we should just let him do so. That if he hurts someone, we should not try to prevent it. That the most...

WASHINGTON, July 3, 2008 – Coalition forces in Afghanistan killed several enemy fighters and detained eight others in recent days, military officials said. Yesterday in Afghanistan: -- An Afghan noncombatant was killed and several were wounded when a militant mortar attack directed at a coalition base in Konar province missed and struck near a group of local citizens. The militants, 300 meters inside Pakistan, repeatedly fired mortars at a coalition base and missed, officials said. Coalition forces returned artillery fire, and the militants retreated, officials added. -- Three Taliban militants were detained in Ghazni province, where coalition forces were targeting...

SHINDAND AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, July 3, 2008 – U.S. special operations warriors serving in western Afghanistan’s volatile Herat province have a unique security-enhancing capability in their own backyard, and it involves neither bullets nor bombs. An Afghan beekeeping student demonstrates the honey-extraction skills his instructor taught him, as his fellow students look on. The Shindand Agricultural Experiment Station provides farmers in the Shindand district of Afghanistan’s Herat province with agricultural education and employment. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Anna Perry, Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The Shindand Agricultural Experiment Station, located within...

BRUSSELS, Belgium, July 2, 2008 – Absenteeism, corruption, low pay, lack of equipment and weapons, and a high casualty rate are just some reasons policemen show up at the Jalalabad Regional Training Center in Afghanistan. The goal for them is to avoid these situations. An Afghan police instructor shows a police trainee how to properly turn and arm himself at the Jalabad Regional Training Center, one of seven RTCs located throughout Afghanistan. The eight-week training gives the police the basics of police operations to include proper arrest procedures, human rights, Afghan laws, and corruption issues. More than 52,000 police...

WASHINGTON, July 2, 2008 – Defense Department officials are very concerned about the situation in Afghanistan, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said here today. “Violence is up significantly from a year ago,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said during a Pentagon news conference. For the second month in a row, more coalition servicemembers died in Afghanistan than died in Iraq. Given the country’s harsh winters and unforgiving terrain, summer historically is the fighting season in Afghanistan, but the Taliban have become more organized and efficient, Mullen said. But part of the increase in violence is because there are...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, July 2, 2008 – An airman and a sailor from Combined Joint Task Force 101 here teamed up with Afghan doctors and other coalition medics June 26 to host a village medical outreach event in the village of Nilay in the Kohe Safi district of Afghanistan’s Parawan province. Navy Cmdr. Beth Myhre, officer in charge of the cooperative medical assistance team, checks an Afghan child’s burn scars as part of a medical outreach event in Nilay village in the Kohe Sofe district of Afghanistan’s Parwan province, June 26, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Pvt. Tamara...

WASHINGTON, July 1, 2008 – Coalition forces in Afghanistan killed 34 militants and captured four others during separate operations in Khowst and Nimruz provinces yesterday, military officials said. Coalition forces operating in southern Khowst province killed 33 militants. A coalition aerial reconnaissance team located the militants, who were armed with heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Coalition forces engaged the militants with attack helicopters and a close-air-support bomber. All of the militants were killed. Coalition forces killed one militant and captured four others during an anti-Taliban operation conducted in Nimruz province. Coalition forces searched compounds in the Khash Rod district...

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 1, 2008 – The first class of the Afghan National Police’s “Jump Start” program graduated at the Central Training Center here June 26. A graduate of Jump Start raises his graduation certificate as he is applauded by his classmates. Jump Start is an eight-week course that qualifies Afghan recruits as police officers. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Shawn Graham  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The 229 men and four women in the class were trained by instructors from DynCorp International, a private military contracting company. Jump Start is a police training program...

KABUL: The latest terrorist attack on a prison in Kandahar was not the work of the Taliban alone. In fact, all significant terrorist attacks during the last several months in Afghanistan have the imprint of Al-Qaida both in the planning and execution. Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai's harsh reaction against Pakistan, by threatening to send Afghan troops into Pakistani soil to fight Al-Qaida and the Taliban in their safe houses, shows the frustration of the Afghan leadership against Pakistan's latest peace agreements with the Taliban. The US military in Afghanistan is convinced of Pakistan's duplicity and cannot ignore the threat coming...

The US military and Afghan National Army fought yet another major engagement in eastern Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan. An estimated 33 Taliban were killed in a battle in the Spera district in Khost province. The battle began after the Taliban launched a complex attack on a US outpost in the Spera district, right along the Pakistani border. The Taliban followed up a rocket attack with small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire. US forces beat back the attack with "mortar, artillery fire and close air support," the International Security Assistance Force reported in a press release. The Taliban fighters "crossed...

KABUL: Taliban militants have burned down four ice cream parlours in a province bordering the capital Kabul, a security guard said. The militants, who attacked the parlours in the Kulanger district of Logar on Monday, also set fire to DVDs, CDs and televisions used to entertain ice-cream buyers while they eat. Security guard Mohammad Alem said: "At about 1am 10 masked Talibs came into the market and asked me to show them where the ice-cream shops were. I was scared so I showed them." The masked men broke down the parlour doors, took out the televisions and set fire to...

The Joint Bazaar, an island in the river Panj, separating Tajikistan/Afghanistan. Merchants display foodstuffs. The real business is exchanging weapons for heroin. Mohammad Aslam: “We trade a kilo of heroin for ten Kalakovs (Kalashnikov AK-74s) or 15 Kalashnikovs.” “the Taleban give us a kilo for just five or six, everybody benefits.” “When we get one Kalashnikov we sell it for $200, but the gun will fetch 50% more in Jalalabad.” “We have old friends in the government, everybody gets a cut.” Mir Alam: “I am just looking for a good customer. It isn’t important to us who it is. We...

What does Barack Obama propose to do about the continued setbacks in the war? (Not that war. The war in Afghanistan!) Today, CNN reports that June has been the second consecutive month during which coalition troop deaths in Afghanistan outnumbered those in Iraq. Moreover, June saw more troop deaths than any month since the start of the war in 2001. According to a new Pentagon report, Taliban violence has spread from isolated pockets into larger, previously calm, areas of the country. Furthermore, the Taliban is challenging local government authority in the East and the South. Defense Secretary Robert Gates places...

For the second month in a row, U.S. and allied troop deaths in the Afghan war have surpassed those in Iraq, according to official figures tallied by CNN. U.S. troops in armored vehicles patrol in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, last week. In June, 46 foreign troops died in Afghanistan and 31 troops died in Iraq. In May, 23 foreign troops died in Afghanistan and 21 died in Iraq. A Pentagon report issued last week about Afghanistan said security in many areas of the country is regarded as "fragile" and Taliban militants have regrouped into a "resilient insurgency" after the Taliban was...

MANDOZI, Afghanistan - Army Pvt. Justin Fillmore has some family military history. Yet he didn't really know what to expect in his first overseas combat mission. He is here in Afghanistan, he says, because he wanted to give a break to other soldiers, some of them on their second, third or fourth combat deployments. "I'm young enough, I can handle it," Fillmore, 23, of Latrobe says as he sits by a Humvee, smoking a cigarette. "I'm happy it happened, that I got to go while I still had the mind-set for it."

KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan, June 30, 2008 – A Kunar Provincial Reconstruction Team program here trains Afghan men to become part of the Afghan National Auxiliary Police force. (Left to right) Navy Petty Officers 2nd Class Jovener R. Mironchik and Elizabeth M. Luna, along with Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos A. Ramirez and Seaman Brian L. Boyd Jr., gather with Afghan National Auxiliary Police officers before a graduation ceremony at the Kunar Provincial Reconstruction Team’s training facility near Asadabad, Afghanistan. U.S. Navy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The three-week Police Training and Advisory Team program was conducted...

WASHINGTON - President Bush today signed legislation ushering in a new era in GI Bill benefits. The legislation, which the Senate last week passed overwhelmingly, is part of a $162 billion war spending bill. "We are very excited that after 18 months of working on the GI Bill that it's been passed into law," said Patrick Campbell, legislative director for IAVA. "Now veterans everywhere will see their opportunities greatly expanded." The administration has opposed the new GI Bill on the grounds it would be too expensive, while the Pentagon has been concerned the more generous benefits - including a free...

DURAGI, Afghanistan -- Early morning, and 14 U.S. soldiers stand in a semi-circle for a mission briefing. Four Humvees, engines running, rumble beside them. "We're going to Warshallah today," Army Capt. Sam Karr, 28, of Manhattan, Kan., tells his platoon. "I guess it has, like, 200 bad guys in it. That's nothing, dudes -- we've got 14, so we're good."

Afghan, U.S. troops kill 32 Taliban in clashes Sat Jun 28, 1:00 PM ET Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops killed 32 Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan, including some who dressed as women in an attempt to escape, the U.S. military said on Saturday. The Taliban opened fire with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades on a patrol of Afghan security forces and coalition troops in Uruzgan province on Thursday, the U.S. military said in a statement.

As part of the regeneration of Afghanistan, Denmark has renovated and rebuilt nine mosques and is building a new one in Helmand province Danish soldiers have been hard at work in the regeneration program for Afghanistan. But what the locals want more than hospitals and schools is a place of prayer. As a result, the Danes have helped renovate and rebuild nine mosques in Helmand province and are building another large one in the town of Rahim Kalay. 'We met with the locals and offered to help with the regeneration. One of the very first things they wanted was a...

The fanatical Taliban mastermind behind recent attacks in which six British soldiers died in Afghanistan has been killed in a missile attack by an Army Apache helicopter. In what military chiefs described as a 'deliberate and surgical strike', the 35-year-old rebel leader - known as Sadiqullah - died alongside nine fellow Taliban fighters after the Apache fired two laser-guided Hellfire missiles at their red pick-up truck and destroyed it. The rebel leader had been tracked down after weeks of secret intelligence work. His death would have been instantaneous, as the warheads of the 5ft-long missiles, which travel at 950mph, are...

Red agencies/ districts controlled by the Taliban; purple is de facto control; yellow is under threat. The Pakistani government has launched an operation targeting the Taliban in the Khyber tribal agency along the Afghan border. The operation is led by the paramilitary Frontier Corps and police. Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, has responded by halting peace negotiations and threatening to conduct attacks throughout Pakistan. The operation was launched in the early morning by elements from the Frontier Corps, the Frontier Constables, and police commandos. The Pakistani Army has not committed to the fight at this time,...

SHINDAND AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (June 27, 2008) – The dedication in his eyes is evident as the American Special Operations warrior attentively moves up and down the row of Afghan Commandos on the firing range. He rewards a particularly good shot with an approving tap on the helmet. He seems unaware of the sweltering heat or the weight on his shoulders from the massive amount of equipment he is wearing. His only concern is for the men before him and the mission they have accepted. Afghanistan’s security and stability partially rests in the hands of the Commandos on this range....

KABUL (AFP) - Afghan and US-led coalition forces killed 32 Taliban-linked militants in fighting in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said Saturday. The rebels were slain after attacking the forces patrolling in southern Uruzgan province's Khas Uruzgan district on Thursday, the statement said. "A total of 32 militants were killed by Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces in two separate engagements in the Khas Oruzgan District, the statement added. A 10-year-old Afghan child and two Afghan national policemen were wounded during the battle, it added, without giving details on how the child was hurt. The attack, the latest in an...

A British soldier was killed and two others injured when a vehicle they were travelling in rolled over while on patrol in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said on Saturday. "The vehicle had been part of a patrol, conducting force protection when the incident occurred. The incident was not combat-related," said the MOD in statement. The three soldiers, who were from the 13 Air Assault Support Regiment Royal Logistic Corps, were evacuated to NATO's International Security Assistance Force's medical facilities at Camp Bastion... ...The death in Helmand province brings to 109 the number of British troops killed since U.S.-led...

The Pakistani military has launched an offensive against militants near the main north-western city of Peshawar, security officials said. Militants have become more active in and around Peshawar in recent months, say correspondents. A contingent of troops has blocked the road towards Afghanistan, imposed a curfew and ordered shops to shut. Pakistani militant leader Baitullah Mehsud said he was suspending peace talks with the government. Pakistani forces have fired mortar rounds at suspected militant hide-outs in the mountains of the Khyber region, west of Peshawar. "There has been no resistance, so far. No casualties, so far," Malik Naveed Khan, police...

05/15/07 -- FAYETTEVILLE) (WTVD) -- 82nd Airborne Division Paratrooper, Major Larry Bauguess of Moravian auguess graduateFalls, N.C. died from injuries sustained from enemy small arms fire in Pakistan Monday. The 36-year-old was the operation officer for the 4th Brigade Combat Team's Special Troops Battalion. Bauguess graduated from Appalachian State University in 1993. Public Family Statement by Mrs. Wesley Bauguess An 82nd Airborne Division Paratrooper died from injuries sustained from enemy small arms fire, in Teri Mengel, Pakistan Monday. Maj. Larry J. Bauguess, Jr., 36, of Moravian Falls, N.C., was the Operations Officer for the 4th Brigade Combat Team's Special Troops...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A former Taliban fighter has provided a gripping first-hand account of being secretly trained by members of the Pakistani military, paid $500 a month and ordered to kill foreigners in Afghanistan. Mullah Mohammed Zaher offered a vivid description of a bomb-making apprenticeship at a Pakistani army compound where he says he learned to blow up NATO convoys. He's one of three former Taliban fighters introduced to The Canadian Press by an Afghan government agency that works at getting rebels to renounce the insurgency. Zaher insists he was neither forced to go public with his story nor coached...

By Bill RoggioJune 27, 2008 3:14 PM Wanted poster for Siraj Haqqani. The image is a composite photo. Click to view. The Taliban has launched yet another attack on a US outpost in Afghanistan from inside Pakistan. A Taliban rocket teams fired at a US outpost in Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan from two sites early this morning from two sites: one within Afghanistan and another about 400 meters across the border in Pakistan. Four rockets struck near the military base, but no casualties were reported. The military responded by attacking the two sites and notifying the Pakistani military of...

WASHINGTON, June 27, 2008 – A pair of Defense Department reports published today on Afghanistan describe progress with regard to the country’s security and national forces. The studies, which analyze results of Operation Enduring Freedom through March, were mandated by Congress and represent the first installment of what are slated to be semi-annual progress updates. The Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan depicts a “fragile” security environment in much of the country. It concludes, however, that coalition forces’ counterinsurgency approach has demonstrated how a hybrid of military and nonmilitary resources can create stability and connect Afghan citizens...

WASHINGTON, June 27, 2008 – The 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines are disrupting the Taliban’s freedom of movement in Afghanistan’s Helmand and Farah provinces, the battalion’s commander said today. “We expected that we were going to experience a lot of friction by the enemy,” Marine Corps Lt. Col. Richard D. Hall told online journalists and bloggers in a teleconference, noting that until the 1st Marine Division unit arrived, Taliban operatives and other militants could operate as they pleased. “We’re disrupting that, and they don’t like it,” Hall said, “so they’ve been trying to come after us because of that.” He praised...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, June 27, 2008 – The Kapisa and Parwan Provincial Reconstruction Team civil affairs leader visited a few local villages in the Kohe Safi district June 24 and met with Community Development Council representatives. Army Capt. Steve H. Kaiser, Kapisa and Parwan Provicial Reconstruction Team civil affairs leader, discusses future projects with the Community Development Council in a village in the Kohe Safi district, Afghanistan, June 24, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Pvt. Tamara Gabbard, 382nd Public Affairs Detachment  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The CDC, a body of elected villagers, is given special training...

The Taliban took the school-books away. It also took the flour and cooking oil. It warned the farmers of Kajaki Olya, a village on the banks of the Helmand River in southern Afghanistan, not to accept any other gifts from the British troops struggling to bring order to this corner of the country's most problematic province. Ghulam Madin, an opium-poppy farmer, begs the soldiers to stop coming through his village. He doesn't want any more food or cash, even though his gaunt face and bare feet indicate that he needs both. "Last time you brought us shoes as gifts, and...

Pakistan's failure to pressure Taliban a concern: Gates WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday said Pakistan's failure to put pressure on Taliban forces on the country's border with Afghanistan had fueled a rise in violence, but said Islamabad appeared to recognize the problem. ADVERTISEMENT A 40 percent spike in violence in east Afghanistan in the first five months of 2008 "is a matter of concern, of real concern, and I think that one of the reasons that we're seeing the increase ... is more people coming across the border from the frontier area," Gates told a...

NWFP govt accepts Swat Taliban demands Friday, June 27, 2008 Rejects immediate Army pullout; check-points to be abolished; prisoners’ release soon By Delawar Jan PESHAWAR: The Swat Taliban brought the NWFP government to its knees after relentless attacks in the past four days, as the government agreed to do away with security check-points, release all the Taliban prisoners in a few days and ensure an early payment of compensation to the victims of military operations, but flatly refused to withdraw the Army forthwith. The government held fresh talks with the Taliban in Peshawar to revive the ceasefire and save the...

DAMADOLA, Pakistan, June 27 (Reuters) - Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan publicly slit the throats of two Afghans on Friday after they were accused of spying for U.S. forces suspected of launching a missile strike in May. The two men, one of them a former Taliban fighter, were brought blindfolded before a crowd of several thousand people near the village of Damadola in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border before they were executed. "They were spies. Whoever spies for the Americans will meet the same fate," Qari Zia-ur-Rehman, a Taliban leader in the area, told the crowd before another...

The Democrats now find themselves in a thoroughly uncomfortable dilemma over Iraq. Back in the early days of the American invasion, when things were going relatively badly, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced the war was "lost" and America's only recourse was to pull out. (This, of course, would have been an absolute political disaster for the Bush administration, as Mr. Reid no doubt knew and hoped.) In the subsequent months and years, when things there have gone substantially better, Mr. Reid has never retracted his highly premature conclusion but it is safe to say it is now "inoperative."...

Hot Pursuit: US Forces Strike Targets in Pakistan's FATA – Federally Administered Tribal Areas – over the Afghan Border Edited excerpts from an opinion piece by B. Raman, published in Outlook India [1]On the night of 10 June 2008, twenty-seven (27) people – thirteen (13) of them members of Pakistan's Frontier Corps (FC), including a Major – are reported to have been killed in an airstrike by USAF aircraft on a checkpoint located near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. [ The FC checkpoint was ] in the Mohmand Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. [...

The United States Senate has approved additional funding of $162bn (£82bn) for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill includes significant extra funding for US war veterans' education and unemployment benefits. It is a victory for President Bush, and does not include any timetables for withdrawing US troops from Iraq, something Mr Bush vigorously opposed. With the new funding, the total US budget for Iraq and Afghanistan now stands at more than $800bn (£400bn). The bill allows the Pentagon to pay for US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan until mid-2009. It also envisages a significant increase in college education...

Russia joins the war in Afghanistan By M K Bhadrakumar Jun 25, 2008 Moscow is staging an extraordinary comeback on the Afghan chessboard after a gap of two decades following the Soviet Union's nine-year adventure that ended in the withdrawal of its last troops from Afghanistan 1989. In a curious reversal of history, this is possible only with the acquiescence of the United States. Moscow is taking advantage of the deterioration of the war in Afghanistan and the implications for regional security could be far-reaching.

6/26/2008 - BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AFPN) -- The U.S. Air Forces Central band "Falcon" showcased its musical talents for audiences June 20 to 22 at Bagram Air Base. The band entertained attendees of the 455th Expeditionary Operations Group change-of-command ceremony with a variety of pop music before and after the ceremony. During the formal procedure, the band played "Ruffles and Flourishes," the "General's March," the national anthem and the Air Force song. Later in the afternoon, the band gathered their acoustical gear and set out to reach the Airmen assigned to the aircraft maintenance squadrons remotely located on the...

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2008 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today praised a pledge by Pakistani officials to renew pressure along its northwestern border, where militants responsible for violence in eastern Afghanistan have taken refuge. The secretary praised a pledge today by top Pakistani officials to engage tribal leaders along the North West Frontier Province, where militants responsible for much of the violence in eastern Afghanistan are believed to be taking refuge. “The challenges that we're facing in Afghanistan, … are in some measure a result of the relaxation of pressure on the Pakistani side of the border,” Gates said...