Monday's bomb attack on the Boston Marathon showed a "level of sophistication or training" in the construction and placement of the weapons that could complicate the identification of the culprits, said a former FBI agent who led the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
The Taliban fell 12 years ago in Afghanistan, but one of its steadiest sources of funding — opium, which is derived from the poppy plant — has hardly faded, and U.N. experts say this year's crop is on target to near record-breaking production levels.
Navy SEALs are the toast of America. Now there is a richly illustrated book, which its authors bill as the best inside look yet at how to train a naval commando. It shows the faces of men who protect America by fighting, and sometimes dying, in the shadows.
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Sunday railed against the "cowardly" terrorists responsible for the attack that killed five Americans in Afghanistan, including a "selfless, idealistic" young diplomat on a mission to donate books to students.
Six American troops and civilians and an Afghan doctor were killed in attacks on Saturday in southern and eastern Afghanistan as the U.S. military's top officer began a weekend visit to the country, officials said.
A former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan is worried that the nuclear-armed South Asian nation could collapse as a growing number of Islamic terrorists are targeting soldiers, civilians and government officials.
Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, has given his stamp of approval for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar to seek the presidency in next year's elections.
The major candidates to become Pakistan's next prime minister oppose American drone strikes on Islamic extremists in their country, which bodes ill for the U.S. policy after Pakistan's historic parliamentary elections in May.
U.S. special operations forces handed over their base in a strategic district of eastern Afghanistan to local Afghan special forces on Saturday, senior U.S. commanders said. The withdrawal satisfies a demand by Afghan President Hamid Karzai that U.S. forces leave the area after allegations that the Americans' Afghan counterparts committed human rights abuses there on U.S. orders.
