Afghan Troops

A U.S. military investigation into the August downing of a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan concluded that Taliban fighters "on a heightened state of alert" shot it down, but it cleared U.S. commanders of tactical mistakes. Contrary to some initial reports, the helicopter carrying 38 U.S. and Afghan troops, including 17 Navy SEALs, was not on a rescue mission. Instead, it was dispatched to kill or capture a Taliban leader. As the CH-47 helicopter descended toward a landing zone in Wardak province, it was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, which sheared off a rear rotor blade and caused the craft to plummet 150 feet into a dry creek bed, where it exploded, Brig.

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.

A roadside bomb killed 22 people, many of them women and children, crammed into a minivan in western Afghanistan on Thursday, a grim reminder of the toll that the 10-year war against Taliban insurgents takes on civilians. The blast was one of two that struck civilians in the Owbeh district of the western province of Herat on Thursday morning. A separate roadside bomb killed an Afghan woman and injured seven people in a small Mazda truck, said Mohayuddin Noory, a spokesman for the Herat governor's office.

Taliban insurgents shot down a U.S. Chinook helicopter early today, killing 31 American troops and seven Afghans aboard, American and Afghan officials said. It was the war's greatest single-incident loss of military lives. UPDATE WASHINGTON - AP sources: Majority of those killed in helicopter crash were from Navy SEAL Team 6. The rare downing of an American military aircraft, in a province on the doorstep of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, represented a blow to Western efforts to establish calm as the United States and its allies begin drawing down forces in Afghanistan.

Their name conjures up the most celebrated moment of America's post-Sept. 11 military campaigns. Now the Navy SEALs belong to a grimmer chapter in history: the most deadly incident for U.S. forces in the 10-year Afghanistan war. Three months after they killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in neighboring Pakistan and cemented their place in military legend, the SEALs suffered a devastating loss when nearly two dozen of the elite troops were among...

A new U.S. commander, Marine Gen. John R. Allen, formally took control of the war in Afghanistan on Monday, inheriting a nearly decade-long conflict that has cost the lives of at least 1,668 American troops. Allen succeeds Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who is leaving to head the CIA. Petraeus had been in command for only a year, hastily taking the helm after President Obama forced out Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal after a Rolling Stone article on him reported intemperate comments by his staff about the administration's civilian leadership.

A new U.S. commander, Gen. John Allen, formally took control of the war in Afghanistan on Monday, inheriting a nearly decade-long conflict that has cost the lives of at least 1,667 American troops. Allen succeeds Gen. David H. Petraeus, who is leaving to head the CIA. Petraeus had been in command for only a year, hastily taking the helm after President Obama fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal after Rolling Stone magazine reported intemperate comments by his staff about the administration's civilian leadership.

President Obama has made a decision on the speed and size of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and will address the nation at 8 p.m. Wednesday on his plans, the White House announced Tuesday. Speaking at his televised briefing, Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that the president had made his decision but refused to discuss specifics. Carney said the process of deciding “was all about the mission that was laid out” by Obama in his 2009 speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Hundreds of Afghans demonstrated Saturday after a 15-year-old boy was killed by U.S. forces in a volatile eastern province. At least one protester died in the melee. The teen was shot to death late Friday in Nangarhar province while trying to pull a gun on Afghan and U.S. troops, Western military officials said. On Saturday morning, villagers carried the body to an administrative center, where protests broke out. Demonstrators started throwing rocks, then burned police vehicles before some fired on police, according to local reports.