Middle East, Wars | featured news

The second highest al-Qaida leader in Afghanistan was killed in a weekend airstrike in the country's volatile east near the border with Pakistan, NATO-led forces said on Tuesday.

It was what President Barack Obama called a "war of necessity," a conflict thrust upon America by the 9/11 attacks. As NATO's mission here winds down nearly 11 years later, the insurgents remain undefeated, corruption runs rife and the peace process is stuck in the sand.

While the Taliban publicly disavowed the new group, Mullah Dadullah Front, Afghan intelligence officials depicted it as a faction of the Taliban.

When it comes to negotiating with the Taliban, it's always one step forward, two steps back. Despite several serious rounds of violence this week, including the assassination of a top peace negotiator, the United States will continue to try to negotiate with the Taliban, experts say. Afghanistan has been violent for a long time, they argue. This week just brought more of the same.

Assaults on coalition service members by uniformed Afghan soldiers, what the military calls "green on blue" attacks, are undermining the future of the mission.

President Obama has wound down America’s war in Iraq, ordered the operation that killed Osama bin Laden and set in motion the end of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan. He also has focused particular attention on veterans and military families, increasing funds for the Department of Veterans Affairs, implementing the post-Sept. 11 G.I. Bill and launching job programs for returning troops.

Ask your average American whether the defense budget should go up or down in 2013, and by how much, and they’ll tell you to cut spending by a whopping 18 percent. Ask your average member of Congress the same question, and no matter which party they’re from, you’ll likely hear that defense spending should barely budge from where it is right now.

After more than a year of sporadic contacts, U.S.-Taliban talks have been stalled for months, deflating Obama administration hopes that progress toward a political solution to the Afghan war would be well underway this spring.

President Barack Obama marked the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death with a speedy trip to Afghanistan, signing a strategic pact with Kabul on Wednesday and delivering an election-year message to Americans that the war is winding down.

Already tense U.S. and NATO ties with Afghanistan were dealt another blow on Wednesday with photographs appearing in an American newspaper of U.S. soldiers posing with the maimed bodies of dead Afghan insurgents.