Taliban | featured news

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....

Taliban bombers attacked offices belonging to the British Council and the United Nations in the center of the Afghan capital Friday. At least three people were killed, police said.

An airstrike on Sunday killed those believed responsible for downing a Chinook helicopter, a commander said.

Insurgents shot down a helicopter in Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans, most of them belonging to the Navy SEALs unit that killed Osama bin Laden, U.S. officials said.

A U.S. military task force has discovered that part of a $2.16 billion transportation contract was diverted through a murky network of subcontractors and into the hands of a group of Afghan power-brokers, criminals and Taliban insurgents, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

Two Taliban spokesmen said their mobile phones, emails and a website had been hacked and messages issued on Wednesday falsely reporting the death of the movement's supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

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."

Afghan officials said Sunday that a NATO airstrike killed 14 civilians, all of them women and children, in the southern province of Helmand on Saturday night. Local officials said the strike was aimed at Taliban fighters and missed. NATO said it was investigating.

Surrounded by the din of his multiple families within walls that were both his sanctuary and prison, Osama bin Laden pecked endlessly at a computer, issuing directives to his scattered and troubled terrorist empire. It's not clear who really listened.

Six people in Florida and Pakistan have been charged with providing financing and material support to the Pakistani Taliban, a designated foreign terrorist organization, U.S. federal officials said on Saturday.