Middle East, War On Terror | featured news

Military officials in Pakistan announced the arrest of three men on Monday they said were senior Al Qaeda operatives who had been planning attacks on Western targets.

The United States must keep fighting the Taliban or risk more attacks like those of September 11, 2001, because the insurgent group is a ruthless enemy that has not cut ties to al Qaeda, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul said.

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....

The number two leader of al Qaeda, Atiyah abd al-Rahman, was killed on August 22 in Pakistan, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Saturday.

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.

The U.S. official in charge of overseeing reconstruction in Iraq says the country is more dangerous than it was a year ago, a blunt assessment that comes five months before American troops are scheduled to leave.

For months officials in Pakistan have been demanding an end to CIA drone strikes in the country, and the brokering of a new relationship that would make them equal partners in the pursuit of terrorist groups. Now they have an unlikely ally in their demands: the former director of U.S. intelligence agencies, Dennis C. Blair.

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.

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."