AFGHANISTAN

The Department of Defense on Wednesday said that the published photographs of U.S. troops posing with the maimed body parts of Afghan insurgents can provoke the enemy to react with violence against U.S. and Afghanistan service members.

The United States, the largest contributor in terms of manpower and money by far, is expected to ask alliance members to shoulder a quarter of the costs of supporting Afghan forces.

Violence, acid attacks and now poisoning. Extremists will try anything to keep girls from seeking an education in Afghanistan.

The pullout will see the 1,500-strong Australian contingent leave Afghanistan by the end of 2013, a year earlier than planned, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Tuesday.

Australia is planning to pull out most of its troops by 2013, a year earlier than planned. Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced Tuesday that the mission in Afghanistan was nearly completed and most of its troops would be back home by 2013, smh.com reported.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday that Sunday's coordinated Taliban attack on Kabul showed a failure by Afghan intelligence and especially by NATO, while Washington signaled the Haqqani group of militants was responsible.

Lord Nazir Ahmed was suspended from the Labour party Monday after reports surfaced that the Muslim life peer offered a bounty for the capture of President Obama and former president George W. Bush.

Shares of AOL, the No. 5 website, fell 1 percent in late Monday trading even after the troubled company won its first Pulitzer Prize.

The prison sentence of would-be shoe bomber Saajid Badat was reduced by two years after he agreed to testify against Adis Medunjanin, one of the men who planned on bombing the New York City subway in 2009.

Karzai went on to praise Afghan forces for handling the situation, saying they had proved themselves capable of defending their country.

The coordinated attacks launched by the Taliban over the weekend on Afghanistan's capital have ended. Security forces unleashed an attack on the Taliban militants near the diplomatic enclave and the parliament before putting an end to the fighting which lasted 18 hours, a spokesman for Kabul's police chief has said.

Taliban fighters launched a coordinated wave of assaults across Afghanistan Sunday, targeting the embassy district of Kabul and parliament, as well as trying to strike an airbase used by American troops, officials said.

Multiple blasts and gun fire erupted in Afghanistan's capital Sunday. The Taliban-linked militants fired rockets at the parliament and NATO base, while reports said a series of blasts were heard in the highly guarded diplomatic area in Kabul.

He's the flashiest tycoon in one of Asia's poorest cities, with a canary-yellow Lamborghini parked outside his neoclassical mansion.

Three separate blasts in western Herat province and Musa Qala killed 10 policemen and eight civilians, as militants step up their activities at the start of spring fighting season.

Pakistan's foreign minister might lose her portfolio for contradicting Pakistani President Yusuf Raza Gilani's remarks on US-Pak ties. The speculation was sparked by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's statement at an interaction with the journalists in Lahore, in which he said that fresh team would carry forward diplomatic talks with India, to discuss bilateral issues including Kashmir.

Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri and four other men had been fighting extradition, saying they would face inhumane conditions in the supermax federal prison in Florence, Colo.

Suicide bombers killed at least ten people and wounded 20 persons on Tuesday morning in Afghanistan's Herat province according to the Afghan authorities. The unidentified bombers blew up a car laden with explosives outside a district head quarters building.

Under a compromise struck this weekend, American troops in Afghanistan will step back to a supporting role in nighttime raids that have infuriated Afghans .

The United States and Afghanistan signed a deal Sunday giving the Afghans control over night military operations, resolving a major source of friction between President Hamid Karzai and Washington.

The United States does not need and cannot afford the Pentagon’s request for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which will cost -- incredibly -- a mind-boggling $134.5 million per plane.