U.s. Military, Afghan War | featured news

President Barack Obama will announce in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that 34,000 troops will return from Afghanistan by early 2014, a source familiar with the speech told Reuters.

President Obama awarded the nation's highest military honor Monday to a U.S. soldier who led a counterattack in Afghanistan after he and his comrades were asked to "defend the indefensible."

U.S. military officials are investigating the apparent suicide of a Navy SEAL commander in Afghanistan. Navy SEAL Cdr. Job W. Price, 42, of Pottstown, Pa., died Saturday of a non-combat-related injury while supporting stability operations in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan.

The U.S. military said on Monday it was disciplining U.S. troops over two incidents that provoked outrage in Afghanistan early this year, one involving a video depicting Marines urinating on corpses and another over burned copies of the Koran.

A military jury on Monday acquitted a sergeant on the most serious charges in the death of Pvt. Danny Chen, a Chinese-American from Manhattan who killed himself last year while deployed in Afghanistan, but found him guilty on lesser charges... The jury determined that the sergeant, Adam M. Holcomb, was not guilty of negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, communicating a threat and hazing. Sergeant Holcomb was convicted on two counts of maltreatment and one count of assault consummated by battery.

Moving the mountain of U.S. military gear out of Afghanistan after more than a decade of war will cost billions of dollars and prove far more difficult than last year's withdrawal from Iraq, the Pentagon's No. 2 official said Tuesday.

The U.S. designation Saturday of Afghanistan as its newest "major non-NATO ally" amounts to a political statement of support for the country's long-term stability and solidifies close defense cooperation after American combat troops withdraw in 2014....

The plea for congressional hearings on the military's efforts to prevent hazing was highly personal for one lawmaker. Rep. Judy Chu's nephew killed himself in Afghanistan last year after hours of beatings, repeated pushups and mouthfuls of sand. Three Marines allegedly punished 21-year-old Lance Cpl. Harry Lew after he was caught sleeping on duty.

A secret U.S. military report says that the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control over Afghanistan after NATO-led forces withdraw from the country, The Times newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Eight U.S. soldiers have been charged in the death of 19-year-old Private Danny Chen, who was found shot to death in a guard tower in southern Afghanistan. It was first thought to have been a suicide, but the military's investigation found that the Asian-American had been the target of ethnic slurs and physical attacks by his fellow soldiers. Chen was found dead Oct. 3 with a gunshot wound below the chin; it's not clear from the charges whether the eight soldiers are accused of killing him or whether officials are alleging that their mistreatment of Chen led him to take his own life.