Search

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In an insurgency, everyone is an imposter. The enemy wears no uniform and carries no identity card. Just so with a mullah in Kandahar named Noorul Aziz. After trading his job as a Taliban commander for a cushy post as an Afghan government official, the story goes, he was taken last month by the military coalition on a tour of his old bases, where he made speeches to persuade the locals not to support the insurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The prospect of talks with the Taliban inched closer on Thursday when the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran met to explore ways of pushing the nascent peace process forward. The two-day trilateral meeting hosted by the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, comes as his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, claims to have opened direct discussions with the Taliban for the first time in the 11-year-old insurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Several Taliban negotiators have begun meeting with American officials in Qatar, where they are discussing preliminary trust-building measures, including a possible prisoner transfer, several former Taliban officials said Saturday. The former officials said that four to eight Taliban representatives had traveled to Qatar from Pakistan to set up a political office for the exiled Afghan insurgent group. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- From the Taliban's hidden mud compounds to NATO's headquarters in Brussels and the Pentagon, combatants in a decade-long war are asking versions of the same question: How does Osama bin Laden's death change the struggle over who will control Afghanistan? For the Taliban, the jury is still out: they say their insurgency was never solely dependent on Bin Laden, and they could survive his demise, but the American raid that killed him has raised the possibility that even the movement's top leaders may not be safe in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL -- The Taliban announced that the insurgent group's spring fighting season would begin officially across Afghanistan on Sunday in an unusual news statement that aimed to project an image of strength and concern for civilians, even as NATO warned the public to expect insurgent efforts to launch a major attack. The United Nations special representative, Staffan de Mistura, meanwhile, said both sides should redouble their efforts to avoid killing civilians as the fighting is expected to ratchet up with the arrival of good weather. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- NATO airstrikes killed at least 35 people in a remote mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan last week in an attack that NATO officers say was a successful mission against Taliban insurgents, but that Afghan officials have condemned as causing mass civilian casualties. A joint NATO and Afghan assessment team will go to the area Monday to investigate the casualty allegations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Obama personally delivered pointed criticism to President Hamid Karzai in a face-to-face meeting on Sunday, flying here for an unannounced visit that reflected growing vexation with Mr. Karzai as America's military commitment to defeat the Taliban insurgency has deepened. Mr. Obama's visit was shrouded in secrecy and lasted only a few hours, but included a boisterous pep rally with American troops. It was his first trip as president to the scene of an eight-year-old war he has stamped as his own. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the capture of the provincial capital of Kunduz, Afghanistan, by the terrorist organization the Taliban as of October 1, 2015. The author explains that while the fighting lasted only a few hours, the insurgency had been planning this campaign for at least two years, explores the role of the American-trained Afghan government, and examines the evacuation of the city prior to its capture.