Hamid Karzai | featured news

Afghanistan expects to remain dependent on international economic assistance until 2025, according to projections President Hamid Karzai will deliver to global partners at a conference here Monday. Together with ongoing costs to support the Afghan army and police forces, at least $10 billion in assistance will be required annually after the scheduled departure of foreign combat forces by the end of 2014.

President Hamid Karzai has pardoned a jailed rape victim, but only after she agreed to marry the man she says raped her. The 19-year-old woman, whose name is Gulnaz, was one of the subjects of a documentary recently produced by the European Union, highlighting the phenomenon of rape victims being imprisoned for the "moral crime" of having sex outside marriage, even against their will.

Afghanistan would support Pakistan in case of military conflict between Pakistan and the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview to a private Pakistani TV channel broadcast on Saturday.

A microbiology professor at Kabul University, a fourth-year medical student and a security guard at the presidential palace were among six people arrested in an alleged plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai, Afghan officials said Wednesday.

Direct U.S. talks with the Taliban had evolved to a substantive negotiation before Afghan officials, nervous that the secret and independent talks would undercut President Hamid Karzai, scuttled them, Afghan and U.S. officials told The Associated Press....

A NATO helicopter crashed during an operation against the Taliban near the Afghan capital late Friday night, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office said 31 U.S. troops and seven Afghan soldiers were killed.
A second coalition helicopter was forced to make a precautionary landing in another part of Afghanistan, local officials and a spokesman for the multinational forces said Saturday.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Pakistan's capital on a trip widely believed to be aimed at seeking Islamabad's help in ending a decade-old Taliban insurgency. According to a senior Pakistani security official, Karzai has told the U.S. that "seeking a military victory in Afghanistan will remain a futile venture without a stepped-up political dialogue with the Taliban."

The gathering, which drew 10,000 people, was an frontal attack on the current government’s policies, equating Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

A NATO special operations team mistakenly killed a relative of President Hamid Karzai during a raid late Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Thursday, the latest incident in recent days to trigger an angry reaction from the president.

Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Afghanistan on Monday on a trip for talks with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and visit with U.S. troops.