WORLD
March 15, 2010 | By Jeffrey Fleishman
The bicycle man prefers working in the sun, sitting on a cushion nailed to a wooden block, stretching out his right leg, the one with a missing foot, taken years ago in that instant when a man's life veers another way. Abdul Hibib has been fixing bicycles for almost 30 years. His hands are quick, clicking gears, moving across spokes as if he's plucking a harp. So much worn rubber and troubled history have rolled past him. His country tumbled from war to war while he tinkered with bicycles, outlasting the Soviets, surviving the Taliban.
WORLD
March 14, 2010 | By Jeffrey Fleishman
Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed Saturday to allow foreign observers to sit on an election commission, reversing a decree that sidestepped international oversight and drew U.S. criticism that he was jeopardizing his government's credibility. Karzai's decision followed weeks of pressure from the international community to improve the legitimacy of elections. The president's reelection in August was widely regarded as fraudulent, and his recent decision to do away with foreign monitors further agitated the United Nations.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 14, 2010
The Defense Department last week identified the following American military personnel killed in Afghanistan and Iraq: Aaron M. Arthur, 25, of Lake City, S.C.; sergeant, Army. Arthur was one of two soldiers killed Monday when their vehicle overturned north of Kut, Iraq, south of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 203rd Brigade Support Battalion, attached to the 1st Battalion, 10th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division at Ft. Benning, Ga. Lakeshia M. Bailey, 23, of Columbus, Ga.; specialist, Army.
WORLD
March 14, 2010 | By Jeffrey Fleishman and M. Karim Faiez
Four suicide bombers struck the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Saturday evening, killing at least 31 people and destroying houses and shops, according to investigators. Officials said the bombs exploded near a hotel, a police station and at the city's main prison, possibly in an attempt to free Taliban militants. Other reports indicated that a large blast at the prison was followed by a barrage of rockets. "There were four suicide bombers, including two in cars, and all the attacks happened within the city about 7:30 p.m.," Mohammad Pashtun, chief of criminal investigations for Kandahar province, told The Times by telephone.
WORLD
March 12, 2010 | By Jeffrey Fleishman
The bicycle man prefers working in the sun, sitting on a cushion nailed to a wooden block, stretching out his right leg, the one with a missing foot, taken years ago in that instant when a man's life veers another way. Abdul Hibib has been fixing bicycles for almost 30 years. His hands are quick, clicking gears, moving across spokes as if he's plucking a harp. So much worn rubber and troubled history have rolled past him. His country tumbled from war to war while he tinkered with bicycles, outlasting the Soviets, surviving the Taliban.
WORLD
March 11, 2010 | By Julian E. Barnes
Congressional opponents of the war in Afghanistan forced a debate Wednesday on the floor of the House of Representatives on a resolution to bring U.S. forces home and end the 8-year-old conflict. The measure ended up losing, 356 to 65, a margin that had been expected. Nonetheless, antiwar lawmakers welcomed the debate as a chance to express pent-up frustration with the continued troop buildup in Afghanistan, and to express their view that the original mission of U.S. forces, defeating Al Qaeda, had been lost.
WORLD
March 10, 2010 | By Jeffrey Fleishman
The men come at dawn, a ragged, anxious collection of faces peeking through scarves and hoping for work as they stand in a traffic circle beneath billboards advertising war heroes and washing machines. They are bricklayers, gardeners, hole diggers and carpenters. Sometimes they are tapped on the shoulder, most times they are not, so they hunch amid the cars and fruit stands, knowing that the higher the sun climbs the lower their chances of returning home with money in their pockets.
WORLD
March 7, 2010 | By Jeffrey Fleishman
As soon as a U.S. Marine-led offensive swept the Taliban from Marja recently, a new civilian leader was rushed in, vowing to "bring back dignity" to the town. Turns out, he had served time in a German prison for stabbing his son, international officials said Saturday. Keeping Abdul Zahir in Marja's top post may complicate NATO's aim of urging people in southern Afghanistan to move beyond their violent past. "It's a concern," said a U.S. official, who asked not to be named because of the matter's sensitivity.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 7, 2010
The Defense Department last week identified the following American military personnel killed in Afghanistan: Carlos A. Aragon, 19, of Orem, Utah; lance corporal, Marine Corps Reserve. Aragon was killed in combat Monday in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, on the Pakistani border. He was assigned to the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 4th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. Josiah D. Crumpler, 27, of Hillsborough, N.C.; specialist, Army. Crumpler was one of two soldiers killed Monday when insurgents attacked their unit with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire in the Bala Murghab district of western Afghanistan's Badghis province, which borders Turkmenistan.
WORLD
March 7, 2010 | By Tony Perry
Under a late winter sky, surrounded by mountains left verdant by recent rain showers, is one of Afghanistan's spookiest-looking and most dangerous places: the once-vibrant but now war-ravaged and virtually empty city of Now Zad. For decades, it was among Helmand province's largest and most prosperous cities, thanks at least in part to the profitable opium poppy crop grown by local farmers, many of whom are sharecroppers. Dozens of shops, numerous schools, government offices and mud-built homes for 25,000-plus residents were arrayed in a crowded pattern that resembled the Western idea of a city.