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Fifty people have died in an attack at a market bazaar and a school near Kandahar airport that began late Tuesday, Afghan officials said.... .....The Taliban took responsibility for the attack. The assault occurred hours after a "Message to Obama" was posted to a video site, purportedly of Taliban suicide attackers warning that U.S. troops would not be safe in Afghanistan.

A Taliban commander close to the negotiations over the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl told TIME Thursday that the deal made to secure Bergdahl’s release has made it more appealing for fighters to capture American soldiers and other high-value targets. “It’s better to kidnap one person like Bergdahl than kidnapping hundreds of useless people,” the commander said, speaking by telephone on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. “It has encouraged our people. Now everybody will work hard to capture such an important bird.”

The White House on Monday defended Vice President Joe Biden for saying that the Taliban isn't an enemy of the United States despite the years spent fighting the militant Islamic group that gave a home to Al Qaeda and its leader Usama bin Laden while he plotted the Sept. 11 terror attacks. "It's only regrettable when taken out of context," White House spokesman Jay Carney said of the vice president's remarks in an interview published Monday. "It is a simple fact that we went into Afghanistan because of the attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. We are...

It's no secret that war is expensive, but a report out Wednesday says the U.S. has wasted billions in Iraq and Afghanistan. More tax dollars will go down the drain unless the government makes big changes... Today, a blue ribbon commission put a number on how much has been lost not to violence but to mismanagement and corruption. Commission on Wartime Contracting Chairman Christopher Shays says: "We are wasting between $30 and $60 billion during the course of our engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan." Shays says $30 billion in waste can be documented; Everything from leasing four-wheel vehicles at "grossly...

ISLAMABAD: The US has established contacts with Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar to negotiate an end to the conflict in Afghanistan, a media report said on Tuesday. Abdul Haqiq, a former Afghan Taliban spokesman who used the alias Mohammad Hanif, played a key role in helping Washington reach out to Mullah Omar, The Express Tribune newspaper quoted a source as saying. Haqiq was arrested by US and Afghan intelligence agents in Afghanistan in June 2007. He was one of the high profile Afghan Taliban spokesmen along with Yousuf Ahmadi, appointed after chief spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi was arrested in...

I've come to the realization that Obama likes War. He is not a peacenik like Jimmy Carter. Instead, he is at war with our values, religious, moral and constitutional. He is at war with our healthcare. He is at war with our capitalism. He is at war with our children as he shreds their future piling up debt. He is stirring up war between races, between poor and rich, between muslim and others, between blue states and red states. There is no respect in this man. He talks down to Americans, telling them what he wants them to do, lecturing...

I’ve been reading the Rolling Stone magazine piece that brought down General McChrystal and feel very unnerved by it. I know that the consensus dictated that, after remarks made largely by members of McChrystal’s team, the General simply had to go. But a number of things occur to me. Firstly, is America sure it has enough top generals and is doing so well in Afghanistan and Iraq that it can simply dispose of any general tripped up in such a – pretty sneaky – way by the media? I tend not to have much sympathy for politicians caught like this....

A source in Kabul for the Afghan secret talks between the elements in the Taliban led by Mullah Mutawakkil, the Foreign Minister of movement between the American ambassador in Kabul, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, which has achieved progress - without explaining further details. She suggested the United States during the talks give the power to the Taliban in the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan and Kunar, and Nuristan, in exchange for not firing rockets at U.S. bases. According to the source, Eikenberry met with members of the Taliban led by Mullah Mutawakkil in a secret location in Kabul, and that...