Taliban

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Up to 5K US Troops May Head to Afghanistan: Officials

Trump still needs to approve new Taliban plan worked up by military, foreign policy advisers

(Newser) - The Trump administration has slowly changed course on initiatives set by former President Obama, and the 15-year war Afghanistan has just been added to the list. The Washington Post reports high-level US military and foreign policy advisers have created a new blueprint for dealing with the Taliban, which would let...

More Than 100 Killed, Injured as Taliban Storms Army Base

Attackers were former soldiers, militants say

(Newser) - The Taliban has dealt Afghanistan's army what appears to be a very heavy blow inside one of its own bases. Officials say more than 100 Afghan soldiers were killed or injured when Taliban militants attacked a base outside the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Friday, the BBC reports. Some...

US General's Taliban Theory: 'Absolutely False,' Says Russia

Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti thinks Russia may be giving Afghanistan insurgents supplies

(Newser) - There's been lots in the news about Russia lately, and a high-ranking US Army general just added to the mix—this time regarding the country's involvement with the Taliban. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the supreme allied commander of Europe for NATO, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday that...

Taliban Issues a Very Odd 'Special Message'

Leader would like everyone to please plant trees

(Newser) - Springtime in Afghanistan usually brings a spike in violence as the Taliban takes advantage of the thaw to launch a wave of fresh attacks, reports the AP . But the Taliban's leader has just issued a statement calling on Afghans to plant more trees. In a public letter issued Sunday...

Pentagon's Public Stats on US Airstrikes Are Way Off

Likely by thousands—and it's raising questions on transparency, accuracy

(Newser) - The Pentagon's transparency in its fight against overseas extremists is being questioned after a Military Times investigation revealed perhaps thousands of secret airstrikes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria were never publicly disclosed. The US Air Force has an open-source database tapped by Congress, analysts, and others to figure out...

US Military: 33 Civilians Killed During Strike on Taliban

Pentagon conducts investigation after mass casualties

(Newser) - The US military's investigation into a November firefight with the Taliban has shown that 33 civilians died in the raid during which American troops fired on Afghan homes, reports the AP . The inquiry followed claims that civilian deaths resulted from airstrikes called in to support Afghan and US forces...

Kidnapped Teachers Have a Message for Trump

American, Australian seen in Taliban video

(Newser) - The Taliban released a video Wednesday showing an American and an Australian who were kidnapped in August, the first time they've been seen since their abduction. The two men, an American identified as Kevin King and an Australian identified as Timothy Weekes, were abducted outside the American University of...

Afghan Pilot Says She Can't Go Home From US

She applies for asylum, citing death threats

(Newser) - Capt. Niloofar Rahmani's story seems to sum up the dismal state of women's rights in Afghanistan more than 15 years after the Taliban were forced from power. The 25-year-old is the first female fixed-wing pilot in her country's air force, but she says she has received death...

Video of Kidnapped Couple Shows Sons Born in Captivity

Taliban abducted American Caitlan Coleman and Canadian Joshua Boyle in 2012

(Newser) - A newly released video of an American woman and her Canadian husband kidnapped by the Taliban four years ago shows them with two young boys—their own sons born in captivity. Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman were abducted in Afghanistan while on a backpacking trip in 2012, and Coleman, now...

German Consulate in Afghanistan Attacked

Taliban says it sent suicide attackers to the consulate

(Newser) - Germany's consulate in northern Afghanistan was attacked late Thursday when a suicide car bomber rammed the compound, a senior police official said. The car exploded at the gate of the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif city, destroying the gate and wall around 11.10pm local time, said Abdul Raziq Qaderi, head...

The 'All-American Sweetheart' Kidnapped by the Taliban

And why we never hear about Caitlan Coleman, her husband, and the 2 kids she's had in captivity

(Newser) - Caitlan Coleman hailed from Stewartstown, Pa., a "land where bad things aren't supposed to happen." And yet a gripping Philadelphia magazine story describes how something bad did happen to the 26-year-old and her husband—Canadian activist Joshua Boyle, once married to the sister of Gitmo prisoner Omar...

US Suffers 2 Rare Combat Deaths in Afghanistan

US troops were with local troops fighting the Taliban in Kunduz

(Newser) - Two US service members were killed Thursday battling Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan alongside local troops, reports the AP , rare combat deaths for American forces who largely handed over securing the nation to Afghan troops some two years ago. NATO described the Americans killed and two other Americans wounded in the...

Afghanistan's Deepening Crisis: Returning Refugees

They face 'vicious cycle of insecurity and joblessness'

(Newser) - Huge numbers of refugees displaced by decades of conflict are flowing back into Afghanistan, but they are returning to a country in crisis where more than a million people have been forced to leave their homes this year. The Taliban now controls more territory than at any point since 2001,...

Taliban Claims Twin Bombings Near Afghan Defense Ministry

At least 24 killed, 91 wounded

(Newser) - Twin bombings near the Afghan Defense Ministry have killed at least 24 people, including two security force generals, in an attack claimed by the Taliban, the AP reports. A Public Health Ministry spokesman says another 91 people were wounded in Monday's attack in central Kabul; Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq...

New Video of Captive US Mom in Afghanistan Surfaces

Couple warn that Taliban will kill them and their children

(Newser) - The State Department says it is evaluating a video released by the Afghan Taliban showing a Canadian man and his American wife warning that their Afghan captors will kill them and their children unless the Kabul government ends its executions of Taliban prisoners. The video uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday...

9-Hour Siege on American University Ends With 12 Dead

Dozens wounded in assault US State Department calls 'attack on future of Afghanistan'

(Newser) - A brazen, hourslong militant attack on the American University of Afghanistan ended early Thursday after at least 12 people were killed and dozens were wounded in the assault on the sprawling campus on Kabul's outskirts, a government spokesman says. The attack—called "an attack on the future of...

Taliban Exploiting Afghan Police's Addiction to Sex With Boys

'The Taliban are sending boys—beautiful boys, handsome boys'

(Newser) - The Taliban is using child sex slaves as Trojan Horses to destroy Afghanistan's police forces from within, AFP reports. "Bacha bazi" is an ancient custom of having sex with young boys, and it's rampant among police commanders, for whom "boys without beards" are "objects of...

Taliban Name New Leader
 Taliban Names New Leader 
May 25, 2016 3:17 AM CDT

Taliban Names New Leader

He's a former aide to Mullah Omar

(Newser) - Senior Taliban members, after successfully evading American drone strikes for long enough to hold a leadership conference, have named a successor to the leader killed in a US airstrike last week. The Afghan Taliban, acknowledging Mullah Mansour's death for the first time, announced Wednesday that he will be succeeded...

Obama: Killing Was a Message to Taliban

He confirms that US strike killed leader

(Newser) - Mullah Mansour was killed in an American drone strike over the weekend and he had it coming, President Obama said Monday. In the first official US confirmation of the Taliban leader's death, Obama called the killing in Pakistan an "important milestone" that has "removed the leader of...

US Airstrike May Have Killed Taliban Leader Mullah Mansour

The drone strike took place on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border

(Newser) - The Pentagon has announced that the US has conducted an airstrike targeting Taliban leader Mullah Mansour, the AP reports. One American official says the U.S. believes Mansour was killed in a drone strike authorized by President Barack Obama. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the attack occurred in a...

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