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An Afghan soldier killed a U.S. general and wounded 14 coalition troops in a machinegun attack at a military training facility in Kabul, a top Western and senior Afghan official said on Tuesday. -snip- Seven other Americans and five British troops were among the wounded, according to the Afghan official. -snip- The gunman was using a light machinegun according to a U.S. official.

Two blasts struck a convoy carrying Afghan presidential hopeful Abdullah Abdullah after a campaign event Friday in Kabul, killing six civilians but leaving the candidate himself unharmed, officials said. The attack came just over a week before a runoff vote is to be held as Afghans choose a new leader to replace President Hamid Karzai. The Taleban have vowed to disrupt the balloting, although the first round on April 5 was relatively peaceful. Friday’s attack was the first to directly target one of the candidates in Kabul. Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said the violence started with a suicide bombing...

President Obama made a surprise appearance in Afghanistan on Sunday. There is now buzz that the White House revealed the name of the CIA station chief in Kabul to a pool of reporters:

The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan confirmed Thursday that three American doctors were killed by an Afghan security guard who opened fire at a Kabul hospital. The shooting at Cure International Hospital in the western part of the Afghan capital was the latest attack on foreign civilians in the city this year. Two others, including an American nurse, were wounded, according to Afghanistan's Health Ministry. "With great sadness we confirm that three Americans were killed in the attack at CURE Hospital," said a statement posted on the Embassy's Twitter page. "No other information will be released at this time." Afghanistan Minister...

KABUL, Afghanistan — As country director for the International Monetary Fund, Wabel Abdallah spent years navigating the shoals of scandal in Afghanistan’s financial sector. Vadim Nazarov, a top political officer at the United Nations, dedicated himself over the past nine years to looking for a peaceful solution to the Afghan war. Dhamender Singh Phangurha, a British candidate in the coming elections for the European Parliament, was here on a consulting contract. All three happened to be dining Friday at a popular Lebanese restaurant in downtown Kabul, where they were among 21 people killed in an attack for which the Taliban...

Link to video: Kabul restaurant attack: UN reaction to Taliban strike Two Britons and two Americans were among at least 21 people killed when a suicide bomber and gunmen attacked one of Kabul's most popular restaurants. The head of the International Monetary Fund's Afghanistan office and three UN staff of the were also killed in the attack on Friday evening, along with the Lebanese restaurant owner, several Afghans, and two Canadians. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the well protected district in Kabul where most foreign workers live and work. A suicide bomber blew himself up at the...

At least 21 people, including foreigners, killed in suicide assault in heavily fortified district of Afghan capital. At least 21 people - 13 foreigners and eight Afghans - were killed in an apparent Taliban suicide bomb and gun attack on a restaurant in a heavily fortified area of Kabul. The assailants targeted Taverna du Liban, a Lebanese restaurant popular with expatriates and diplomats, in a neighbourhood of Kabul where many embassy buildings and offices of non-governmental organisations are located. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, strongly condemned Friday's attack through his spokesman, who said: "Such targeted attacks against civilians are completely...

Up to 15, mostly foreigners, killed in Kabul suicide attack Reuters IMF representative killed in Kabul, Fund says Reuters 'No possible justification' for Kabul restaurant attack: US AFP [$$] Kabul Bombing Targets Foreigners The Wall Street Journal UN staff, US academic among 21 dead in Kabul attac - A Taliban suicide bomber and gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with foreigners in the heart of the Afghan capital Kabul, killing 21 people including three United Nations staff and the International Monetary Fund's top representative in Afghanistan. Gunmen burst into the Lebanese restaurant spraying diners with bullets after the bomber blew himself...

At least 14 people -- including four U.N. personnel, an International Monetary Fund representative and a British contractor -- were killed Friday in a suicide bombing and shootout at a restaurant in the center of Kabul, authorities said. The suicide attacker's bomb exploded at the restaurant's gate about 7:30 p.m. Two armed men then entered the restaurant and started shooting, Afghan Deputy Interior Minister Mohammed Ayoub Salangi said. Afghan security forces killed the gunmen during a shootout, according to Salangi.

The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan says its compound was hit by indirect fire just before dawn on Christmas Day. It says no Americans were injured. […] The Taliban claimed they fired four rockets at the embassy on Wednesday and inflicted heavy casualties. But the insurgents often exaggerate their claims. …

If Mohammed Ibrahim Caravan smells fear about Afghanistan's future, he doesn't show it. He strolls around like a country squire in the glittering new gated community he helped build, dressed in a spotless white shalwar kameez tunic, stylish shades and polished wingtips. "Worried?" the 28-year-old asked. "Hah — not me. I'm confident in the future. If you don't invest in your own country, who will?" Caravan's company is plunging $160 million into the family-run Saleem Caravan City, with its rows of salmon-colored villas with balconies and rose gardens, like some ersatz Miami Beach condo community. He's moved his family into...

Phyllis Chesler is a psychologist and academic whose writings we have quoted from time to time over the years. Ms. Chesler has always had a rather skeptical attitude toward Islam, in particular with regard to its treatment of women. Now we know why: Chesler has published a new book titled An American Bride In Kabul. You can read an excerpt from An American Bride in the New York Post. Chesler’s horrifying story begins in 1959 when, as an 18-year-old college student, she meets and falls in love with an older, wealthy and cosmopolitan Afghan man. Two years later, they agree...

Fifty years ago this week, Duke Ellington and his band played in a concert he later called one of the most memorable of his life. The performance was in Kabul, in Afghanistan, and even though Ellington was at the height of his fame, almost all traces of it have been lost. For the organiser, Faiz Khairzada, and hundreds of Afghans in the audience, the concert was a high point of the early 1960s. "It was very exciting for me to have him in Kabul," says Khairzada, then head of Afghanistan's cultural affairs organisation. It was he who met Ellington at...

In wake of Benghazi attack, internal probe finds Afghanistan posts vulnerable. U.S. diplomatic facilities in Afghanistan have serious security lapses that pose “unnecessary risk to staff,” including poor emergency preparedness and inadequate protections that might allow classified materials to fall into the hands of attacking enemies, according to an internal report that raises fresh questions about the State Department’s commitment to safety in the aftermath of the Benghazi tragedy. The confidential State Department inspector general’s report, obtained by The Washington Times under the Freedom of Information Act, directly criticizes the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security for failing to perform a...

SNIP A Reuters reporter at the palace said the attack began soon after 6.30 a.m. (0200 GMT) on the building's east gate. Reporters were gathering for a press event with President Hamid Karzai. SNIP

KABUL, Afghanistan Large explosions are being heard coming from the military side of Kabul international airport, which houses a NATO headquarters. The explosions began about 4:30 a.m. Monday from the direction of the military headquarters.

A suicide car bomb targeted a foreign military convoy in Kabul on Thursday, killing 15 people including five Americans in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital for nearly a year. The powerful explosion, which struck at 8:00am (local time) in the Shah Shaheed south-eastern residential district, also injured about 40 passers-by including many children going to school, officials said. Nine Afghans including two children died, along with two US soldiers and four NATO-contracted civilians who were travelling through the city's busy rush-hour traffic. A Western military source in Kabul said the two soldiers and three of the contractors were...

NEW YORK (AP) — A U.N. whistleblower who won his case but received only 2 percent of the $2.2 million he sought in damages and costs is asking the U.S. government to withhold 15 percent of its payments to the United Nations. James Wasserstrom alleged corruption involving senior officials in the U.N. peacekeeping operation in Kosovo in 2007. He is now an anti-corruption adviser at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Wasserstrom told a news conference Monday that he was sending a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and key lawmakers asking that they implement a federal law requiring...

... new details about how a small group of men profited from fraudulent loans. It called out local authorities for succumbing to political pressure and the international community for not doing enough to stave off the catastrophe which led to a near-complete meltdown of Afghanistan’s banking system in 2010. The report, partly compiled from the results of a nine-month-long audit conducted by Kroll, a global investigations firm, said that the crisis was brought on by a well-hidden Ponzi scheme. More than 92% of the bank’s loan book, or $861 million, was extended to 19 related individuals and businesses, which ultimately...

Kabul Bank became Afghanistan’s largest financial institution by offering the promise of modern banking to people who had never had a saving or checking account. What it really dealt in was modern theft: “From its very beginning,” according to a confidential forensic audit of Kabul Bank, “the bank was a well-concealed Ponzi scheme.” Afghan and American officials had for years promoted Kabul Bank as a prime example of how Western-style banking was transforming a war-ravaged economy. But the audit, prepared this year for Afghanistan’s central bank by the Kroll investigative firm, gives new details of how the bank instead was...