Afghanistan

When she was 7 years old, Rahila Muhibi was engaged to her 8-year-old first cousin. The betrothal was arranged, in the Afghan custom, by her father. When Muhibi was ready for high school, her father fended off relatives who demanded that the marriage take place. He thought she was too young, and instead helped her win a scholarship to attend school in Canada. Last month, Muhibi, 24, graduated from tiny Methodist University here.

Russia seems to have a message for the Obama administration: Go ahead and boost your military effort in Afghanistan -- but not without our help. In recent days, Russian officials have rushed forward to offer logistical help to NATO troops in Afghanistan -- at the same time dipping into a dwindling budget to offer impoverished Kyrgyzstan more than $2 billion in an apparent payoff for ejecting a U.S. military base crucial to the war against the Taliban.

Inside the tidy suburban St. Louis home of John and Linda Johnson, no photos of their eldest daughter grace the walls. Army Pfc. LaVena Johnson was just 19 when she died in Iraq in 2005; to this day her parents cannot bear to display reminders of her life. John Johnson does possess other photos of his daughter -- explicit color shots of her autopsy and death scene. He shows them to a visitor. They are horrifying: LaVena in a pool of blood. LaVena's corpse on a coroner's table.

The road to Bala Baluk district stretches arrow-straight ahead, with heat-shimmered cucumber fields on either side. But determining exactly what transpired nearly two weeks ago in a hamlet called Garani takes a far more twisted path. A battle raged. Bombs fell. Afghan officials say at least 140 civilians died, two-thirds of them children and teenagers, in what may prove the most lethal episode of civilian casualties since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Days of interviews with U.S.

The young man named Anton is a member of Russia's "lost generation." He's the son of middle-class, college-educated engineers; he studied at a good university and became a truck sales manager in Moscow. He's also a 28-year-old heroin addict. In the years since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan triggered a sharp increase in poppy cultivation, Russia has been flooded with heroin. The dope has crept along a drug trail stretching from Afghanistan through Tajikistan and other Central Asian nations and over the Russian border, turning this country into the world's top consumer of heroin, the government says.

U.S. military leaders have concluded that their war effort in Afghanistan has been too focused on hunting Al Qaeda, and have begun to shift Predator drone aircraft to the fight against the Taliban and other militants in order to prevent the country from slipping deeper into anarchy. The move, described by government and Defense Department officials, represents a major change in the military's use of one of its most precious intelligence assets.

The main highway is "enemy territory" for the Taliban, a busy two-lane road where U.S. troops race down the middle, trying to steer clear of suicide bombers. The guerrillas drive it like they own it. Grinning with contempt at a convoy of Polish troops trying to plow its way through traffic the other day, three Taliban fighters with guns and long knives concealed under their heavy woolen cloaks calmly eased into the other lane and beat the jam.

The accusation was damning: U.S. soldiers were said to have tossed a grenade into a crowd of Afghans in the eastern province of Kunar on Tuesday, killing two civilians and wounding five to 50 others. American public affairs officers previously have been slow in responding. U.S. military officials here complain that Taliban leaders are often better and faster at spreading their versions of deadly events.

Al Qaeda has expanded its presence in Afghanistan, taking advantage of the sinking security situation to resurface in the country it was forced to flee seven years ago, the top U.S. military intelligence official testified Tuesday. Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, described Al Qaeda's efforts as one of the reasons for the Obama administration's decision last month to order additional troops to Afghanistan.