Afghan Police

A suicide bomber struck a security gathering in Afghanistan's north on Saturday, injuring a provincial governor and the German commander of foreign troops in the region, and killing at least six people — including two senior Afghan police commanders and two German soldiers, Afghan and coalition officials said. The bombing, which took place inside the heavily guarded governor's compound in Takhar province, was the latest deadly strike by insurgents against government installations in the weeks since the Taliban movement declared the start of its spring offensive.

KABUL, Afghanistan - After years of comings and goings, almost everything about leaving Kabul is familiar: the ride through dusty dawn streets, skirting past old men on bicycles and boys in horse-drawn carts, the long airport trudge through four luggage screenings and pat-downs, the way the plane's wingtips seem to almost scrape the jagged peaks surrounding the city. Everything is the same - but the knowledge that this is the last time. Kabul has been home for more than three years, but on this trip my assignment as a foreign correspondent here is ending, and I will join the American exodus from its long war in Afghanistan.

A powerful Taliban car bomb killed as many as 12 Afghan policemen and a child on Sunday in a southern town where Afghan forces took over security responsibilities from Western troops less than two weeks ago. The suicide attack on an Afghan police headquarters in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, could bode ill for hopes that the Afghan police and army will be able to protect themselves and the civilian population against insurgents without...

As a senior in high school, Scott E. Dickinson liked to daydream about owning a shiny red Ferrari and real estate with sweeping views of the Southern California coastline. But his dreams did not include a college education. "He was just floating through life," recalled his mother, Pauline Dickinson. "He didn't even want to get up in the morning, let alone get dirty or sweat or suffer under any circumstances. " Dickinson got lots of tough love at home. But his parents were so concerned that they prayed he would find a direction in life.

The moment Aminullah Arbabi heard that Pamir Airways Flight 112 to Kabul had disappeared in the mountains north of the capital, he ran to his car. His younger brother was on the plane, returning home from work in the northern city of Kunduz. Arbabi had only one thought: Find him. He raced out of Kabul that May afternoon and arrived after dark in the snowy Salang Pass about 60 miles north of the capital, where the plane had reportedly crashed. The 29-year-old construction engineer waited until morning, then set out on foot.

The death toll rose into the scores as Afghanistan saw some of its fiercest battles since the U.S. ousted the Taliban from power in 2001, officials said Thursday. An American police trainer, a Canadian officer -- the first woman from that country to die in combat -- and 13 Afghan police officers were among those killed in the fighting Wednesday night and Thursday.

The government of President Hamid Karzai on Sunday denounced a NATO-led night raid on a compound in Kabul that killed two men, accusing Western forces of violating agreements governing security in the Afghan capital. The quarrel highlighted long-standing disagreements between the Afghan government and the U.S. military, which makes up the majority of the foreign force, over the use of night raids. Afghan officials say such raids often result in accidental civilian deaths. The incident also underscored jurisdictional disputes that are likely to arise as Western troops begin handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan police and army.

Kabul - American and Afghan military forces rescued an American doctor early Sunday who had been kidnapped by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan, military authorities announced. The doctor, identified as Dilip Joseph, an American citizen working for a nonprofit based in Colorado, was rescued along with two Afghan doctors and an Afghan driver, according to international forces and local Afghan officials. The doctors and driver were abducted by gunmen Wednesday afternoon after they had visited a rural clinic in the village of Jad Dalak in the Sorobi district of Kabul province, east of the capital, said Hazrat Mohammed Haqbin, the district governor.

Afghan authorities on Wednesday morning said the last of six attackers who laid siege to the U.S. Embassy and other buildings from a high-rise structure had been killed and the area was secure. The midmorning announcement by the Interior Ministry came nearly 21 hours after the start of the attack, raising troubling questions about why it took so long to secure the building under construction that the assailants used as a staging ground. From its upper floors, they rained rockets and gunfire on a heavily fortified enclave containing embassies, government buildings and the headquarters of the NATO force.

NATO-led troops killed an ally of President Hamid Karzai in southern Afghanistan in an overnight gun battle, officials said. Karzai said the death resulted from a "misunderstanding between foreign and local forces." Ruzi Khan Barakzai, former police chief of Oruzgan province and a tribal leader and militia commander, was killed Wednesday outside Tirin Kot. Australian special operations troops serving with NATO's International Security Assistance Force said they were fired upon and shot back.