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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A Defense Ministry official says a close adviser to the Afghan president and a member of parliament have been killed during an attack in the capital.

Until last week, Solaiman Faizi's biggest problems were making sure that guests at his newly opened hotel didn't burn the place down with their small propane stoves or overload the tenuous power supply. But after an unpleasant encounter with post-Taliban vengeance and justice, Faizi isn't so sure that he should have left New Jersey to help reopen his family's hotel in one of the world's most treacherous cities. One of his brothers is stewing in Kabul's central jail, recovering from a beating by soldiers. Another brother just got out of the hospital, where he says he was treated for a...

Last week, after a decade of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, President Obama announced a plan to begin withdrawing thousands of U.S. troops from the country this year. The war has been expensive -- a Brown University research project released Wednesday estimates the total cost of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at nearly $4 trillion (a figure that includes the ongoing cost of veterans' care). The human cost is more difficult to quantify, as more than 2,500 coalition troops (1,644 of them American) have now been killed, and civilian casualties are estimated at well over 100,000. Canadian combat...

The Kabul Intercontinental Hotel is under attack by gunmen with reports of at least ten deaths and suicide bombers on the roof of the hotel. Streets leading to the Intercontinental hotel were blocked. The hotel is situated on a hill overlooking the Afghan capital. The scene was dark as electricity was out at the hotel. Azizullah, an Afghan police officer who uses only one name, told an Associated Press reporter at the scene that at least one bomber entered the hotel and detonated a vest of explosives. Another police officer, who would not disclose his name, said there were at...

Just a headline for now. AP: The Taliban claim responsibility for the attack at the Intercontinental Hotel in telephone call to the AP. Gunshots heard from inside hotel.

Afghan Police: 6 Die in Kabul Supermarket Blast Associated Press January 28, 2011 KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Police and eyewitnesses say at least six people were killed in an explosion that rocked a grocery store frequented by foreigners in Kabul. Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, chief of counterterrorism at the Ministry of Interior, says both Afghans and foreigners are among the dead in Friday's blast. He says police were still investigating what caused the blast. The explosion ignited a fire inside the store and mounds of canned goods and other merchandise were strewn across the floor of the smoke-filled building, making it...

KABUL - The Afghan government has accused several prominent private security companies, including some that work with the U.S. government, of committing "major offenses," a move that U.S. officials fear could hasten their departure from the country. A list compiled by Afghan officials cites 16 companies, including several American and British firms, for unspecified serious violations and seven others for having links to high-ranking Afghan officials, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post. A decision to ban the major violators and those that have relationships with senior Afghan officials would affect firms that provide about 800 guards for...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indianapolis police said Friday morning that a 15-year-old boy from Afghanistan who has been missing since Thursday night was homesick and likely ran away. Authorities have been in contact with the U.S. State Department as the search for Mohammed Karim Azizi, 15, continues. Azizi, an exchange student who was staying with a host family in Forest, Ohio, was with a group of FFA students from his exchange school, Riverdale High School, visiting Indianapolis for the National FFA Convention. Indianapolis police Lt. Jeff Duhamell said Azizi has been in the U.S. for two months and comes from a large...

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?