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Afghanistan

Jason Motlagh on the war in Afghanistan

Jason Motlagh, who recently returned from a Pulitzer Center-funded trip to Afghanistan, talks to C-SPAN's Washington Journal about the current situation on the ground there. In this half-hour program he fields questions about the challenging terrain in Helmand province, the opium poppy industry and the US's long-term objectives in the war in Afghanistan. Watch the interview on C-SPAN's website.

U.S. to limit air power in Afghanistan

Sobered by the backlash from civilian casualties, the U.S. military is taking steps to tighten restrictions on the use of air power over Afghanistan.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, will order U.S. and NATO forces to break away from engagements with militants who are hiding among villagers as part of a comprehensive "tactical directive," a coalition official said Tuesday.

Taliban Kidnappings: Afghan Journalists Face Bigger Risks

The escape of veteran New York Times correspondent David Rohde from Taliban captors was a rare piece of good news from the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands. For more than seven months, there was almost no public word on his fate. Western news agencies kept silent about the kidnapping of the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, the Afghan reporter Tahir Ludin and their driver, out of concern that international attention might jeopardize their safety. The trio was betrayed by a Taliban commander with whom Ludin had arranged meetings several times before.

Roadside Bombs: An Iraqi Tactic on the Upswing in Afghanistan

The highway that runs between Kabul and the southeastern city of Kandahar is the most brutal evidence of the Taliban's IED offensive. The road is a showcase U.S.-funded project, meant to connect two of the country's most vital commercial centers. But today it is an automotive graveyard, littered with burned-out carcasses of vehicles and disrupted by crumbled bridges.

Petraeus affirms Taliban targeted, killed in air raids

KABUL, Afghanistan | Video footage of a bombing raid by U.S. forces earlier this month on a village in western Afghanistan "very clearly" shows that Taliban militants were targeted and it accounts for most of those killed, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East and South Asia said Friday.

"What the video will prove is that the targets of these different strikes were the Taliban," Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of Central Command, told National Public Radio.

U.S.: Taliban 'very clearly' target of raid

KABUL, Afghanistan | Video footage of a bombing raid by U.S. forces earlier this month on a village in western Afghanistan "very clearly" shows that Taliban militants were targeted and it accounts for most of those killed, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East and South Asia said Friday.

"What the video will prove is that the targets of these different strikes were the Taliban," Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of Central Command, told National Public Radio.