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NATO has provided safe passage for top Taliban leaders to travel to Kabul for face-to-face negotiations with the U.S.-backed Afghan government, a senior alliance official said Wednesday. The official's account was the most detailed yet of the U.S. and NATO role in the clandestine talks, aimed at bringing an end to the 9-year-old war. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to describe the subject publicly. The Afghan government has previously acknowledged that it has been involved in reconciliation talks with the Taliban with some NATO help. But discussions between the two sides have been...

Afghanistan has frozen the assets of leading shareholders and borrowers at Kabul Bank, the country's leading private bank, in the wake of the crisis sparked by the resignation of two high-level directors. Aimal Hashoor, the central bank's spokesman, said on Tuesday the Central Bank had ordered the assets of Sher Khan Farnood, Kabul Bank's former chairman, and Khalilullah Fruzi, the chief executive officer, to be frozen, together with those of several other shareholders and major borrowers. "This basically stops the sale of their assets until the situation becomes clear," Hashoor said. Last week, US media reported that the central bank...

BERLIN: A German held by American forces in Afghanistan has revealed details of planned terror attacks in Germany and other European countries, Der Spiegel weekly reported Saturday. The US believes that the detainee, a 36-year-old from Hamburg, is a "major source" of information on future attacks, the news magazine reported. Germany's foreign ministry has acknowledged that a German was being held by American forces in Afghanistan, but refused to give any more details. According to the magazine, the detainee, identified only as Ahmad S, was part of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. German authorities have been asking to be given...

As depositors thronged branches of Afghanistan's biggest bank, Mahmoud Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a major shareholder in beleaguered Kabul Bank called on Thursday for intervention by the United States to head off a financial meltdown. "America should do something," said Karzai in a telephone interview, suggesting that the U.S. Treasury Department guarantee the funds of Kabul Bank's clients, who number about a million and have more than a billion dollars on deposits with the bank. Kabul Bank handles salary payments for soldiers, police and teachers. It has scores of branches across Afghanistan and holds the accounts...

Afghanistan's largest gathering of clerics, who met to discuss reconciliation with the Taliban, has called for the revival of strict Islamic law as the country seeks ways to win militants away from a growing insurgency. About 350 of the Islamic clerics, or ulema, met for three days this week, the meeting ending with a declaration calling on President Hamid Karzai to enact sharia, or Islamic law, including punishments such as stonings, lashing, amputation and execution. "The lack of implementation of sharia hodud (punishment) has cast a negative impact on the peace process," said a 10-point resolution issued after the meeting....

KABUL, Afghanistan - At the end of his first full day as Commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which included overview meetings with the commander of the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, his three-star commanders, and a number of ISAF's staff sections, General David H. Petraeus decided to take a break and visit the Shahdarak Market in Kabul, Afghanistan. He walked from the ISAF Headquarters to the market, where he met with local businessmen, purchased and shared bread with the locals, and even found time for a little football match with a few local Afghan children. (ISAF Photo by...

6/21/2010 - KABUL (AFNS) -- For the Afghan National Army, the aerial port at the Afghan National Army Air Force base at Kabul International Airport is critical to resupplying troops in the field. The concept of an aerial port has been around for a long time, but increasing the capabilities is the job of the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing Combined Air Power Transition Force. "This group of guys is awesome. There are 23 of them and they are very, very hardworking," said Master Sgt. Michael Dow, the ANAAF Aerial Port mentor. "I am never disappointed." These 23 airmen are responsible...

Dozens of schoolgirls in Afghanistan were admitted to hospital on Tuesday after two suspected poisonous gas attacks on schools, officials said, the latest in a spate of similar incidents. Thirty schoolgirls in the northern city of Kunduz and six in Kabul were admitted to hospital, health officials and the interior ministry said. "Others are also coming in. We don't know the exact number of girls affected, it could be many. It's a similar incident to what happened in Kabul and Kunduz last week," said Homayun Khamosh, head of the Kunduz city hospital where girls were admitted.

SNIPPET: "Kabul, 21 April (AKI) - At least 12 female students were hospitalised in Afghanistan on Wednesday after inhaling a poisonous substance sprayed at a school in northern Afghanistan. The 12 students of the Fatima Zahra Girl School, and a teacher and an assistant were mysteriously poisoned, Hamayon Khamush, director of the hospital in Kunduz city, was quoted as saying by Xinhua." SNIPPET: "To defend their ideology, Taliban militants have attacked girl students with gas and acid." SNIPPET: "In May last year 90 girls were hospitalised in Kapisa province, north-east of the capital, after someone sprayed toxic chemicals in the...

KABUL - Afghan police arrested five would-be suicide bombers Thursday in Kabul — the largest suicide bomb team ever apprehended in the capital, officials said. "If this team had made it through it would have been a disaster as we've seen in past instances," said Abdul Ghafar, deputy commander of the Afghan National Police crisis unit.

SNIPPET: "ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkish police launched a nationwide crackdown on suspected militants linked to the al-Qaida terror network on Friday..." SNIPPET: "Those detained Friday's raids include a faculty member of the Yuzunci Yil University in the eastern city of Van, who is suspected of recruiting students at the campus and other people through the Internet and of sending them to Afghanistan for training, Anatolia reported, citing unnamed police officials. The suspect was identified by his initials M.E.Y. only. Anatolia said other suspects included some local leaders, university students, and people believed to be spreading al-Qaida propaganda."

The Taliban scored a power ful psychological victory yesterday, as fewer than two dozen suicide attackers brought Afghanistan's government and capital city to a standstill. In a dramatic wave of attacks (possibly planned with help from Pakistani intelligence operatives), the Taliban struck Kabul's presidential palace, several government ministries and a multistory shopping complex. And they did it just as President Hamid Karzai was swearing in his new Cabinet (despite a battle with parliament over the legitimacy of his picks). Think that gave Afghans renewed confidence in their government?

Kabul was rocked by blasts as the sound of gunfire filled the streets Suspected Taliban militants have launched an attack in the Afghan capital Kabul, setting off explosions and sparking a gun battle. The fighting erupted near the Serena Hotel and presidential palace, although Afghan President Hamid Karzai says security has now been restored. The Taliban said 20 of its fighters were involved. Two civilians and three security personnel have been killed plus 71 others wounded, officials say. Seven attackers had also been killed, Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said.

The Taliban attack in Kabul is reportedly winding down. The assault began around 9:35 a.m. local time Jan. 18 (the day the new Cabinet was being sworn in) when reports of rocket fire and explosions were heard in the Afghan capital near several government buildings. Just 23 minutes later, reports emerged that the Taliban had claimed the attack in a message to the Afghan Islamic Press. In the claim, Taliban spokesman Zabihollah Mojahed said 20 suicide assailants were attacking the Presidential Palace, the Central Bank and the Ministries of Finance, Justice and Mines and Industries. The Serena Hotel, the Defense...

Despite the lingering demonstrations and disorder in Tehran, Iran’s ruling mullahs are confident anew in their country’s ability to surge to a hegemonic position in the Middle East without a major war. The main reason for the mullahs’ confidence is their interpretation of the appeasement policies of the US Barack Obama Administration. Most significant is the undeclared – yet widely projected – profound change in US policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran and all other regional governments are convinced that the US now strives to “contain” a nuclear Iran rather than continue the declared objective to prevent the nuclearization of...

UZBEEN VALLEY, Afghanistan (AFP) – More than 1,100 soldiers, including 800 French legionnaires as well as US and Afghan commandos, launched a major operation Thursday east of the Afghan capital, military officials said. Military officials said five US special forces were wounded in the fighting in the Uzbeen Valley, a Taliban stronghold where 10 French soldiers were killed in an ambush in August 2008.

URGENT -- HUGE BLAST ROCKS KABUL, AFGHANISTAN. MORE TO COME

KABUL -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived in this war-torn country Tuesday morning on an unannounced visit, prepared to offer U.S. troops a message from Washington after President Obama's decision to boost troop levels significantly: "We are in this thing to win." "A big piece of it, of my conversations especially with the soldiers, will be just to thank them for their service, for their sacrifice and to tell them we are in this thing to win," Gates, speaking to reporters traveling with him, said before his arrival here. Gates, the first senior U.S. official to travel to Afghanistan...

Afghan election officials said Thursday that there will be more voting centres for next week's presidential runoff than in the fraud-tainted first-round vote in August, rejecting U.N. recommendations to eliminate sites to prevent cheating. The Aug. 20 presidential poll was so tainted by widespread ballot-box stuffing and distorted ballot tallies that fraud investigators threw out more than a million votes, enough to force President Hamid Karzai into a second round against his top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Observers and U.N. advisers attributed much of the fraud to so-called ghost polling stations that never opened but returned results or...

Gunmen attacked a guest house used by U.N. staff in the Afghan capital of Kabul early Wednesday, killing at least seven people including three U.N. staff, officials said. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility, saying it was meant as an assault on the upcoming presidential election. Heavy gunfire reverberated through the streets shortly after dawn and a large plume of smoke rose over the city following the attack in the Shar-e-Naw district. Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman said seven people were killed, including some attackers. U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards confirmed that three U.N. staff were among the dead and one was...