Afghanistan

The United States is shifting its strategy against Afghanistan's drug trade, phasing out funding for opium eradication while boosting efforts to fight trafficking and promote alternate crops, the U.S. envoy for the region said Saturday. The aim of the new policy: to deprive the Taliban of the tens of millions of dollars in drug revenue that is fueling its insurgency. Richard C. Holbrooke, the U.S.

Osama bin Laden said in a new audio message that President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan is "hopeless" and called on Americans to resolve the conflict with Al Qaeda by ending the war there and breaking the U.S. alliance with Israel. In a message marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Al Qaeda leader avoided his usual rhetoric of jihad and instead took a more analytical tone, claiming his group's differences with the U.S. stemmed from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Lost: Dog tags. Name: Pat Tillman. If anyone knows of the whereabouts of two dog tags that once adorned the neck of a former NFL star who was killed while fighting for his country in Afghanistan, please come forward. His former team, the Arizona Cardinals, play Sunday in the Super Bowl His former Cardinals roommate, Zack Walz, is desperate to wear them again. Walz was given the tags by Tillman as a gift shortly before his death.

U.S. military officials in Afghanistan have halted the practice of releasing the number of militants killed in fighting with American-led forces as part of an overall strategy shift that emphasizes concern for the local civilian population's well-being rather than hunting insurgent groups. The decision has triggered a quiet but fierce debate among military officers comparing the current situation with the U.S.

The month began with a fatal roadside bombing and ended with word that an American had died of wounds suffered in a firefight. After nearly eight years of warfare in Afghanistan, July proved by far the deadliest month yet for U.S. troops and their foreign allies. Bombs and rocket attacks, ambushes and aviation accidents killed many of the 72 foreign troops, including 43 Americans, according to data at the website icasualties.org. Previously, the highest monthly U.S.

"Frontline" checks in tonight with a gloomy assessment of the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and an equally pessimistic view of whether the U.S. can prod/seduce/jawbone/bribe the Pakistani government into truly confronting Al Qaeda forces in its border region. In political terms, the title says it all: "Obama's War." President Obama has called Afghanistan "a necessary war" compared with the war in Iraq, which he opposed and vows to end. The rhetoric helped squelch Hillary Rodham Clinton -- an early supporter of the Iraq war -- in the Democratic primaries and defeat the hawkish John McCain in the general election.

NBC anchor Brian Williams traveled to Afghanistan on Tuesday to report live from the region this week, covering the U.S. battle against the Taliban. Williams arrived in Kabul as tensions rose about a U.S. air strike on the Afghan border Tuesday night that killed almost a dozen Pakistani troops. ABC senior foreign correspondent Jim Sciutto also arrived in Afghanistan on Wednesday and planned to embed with U.S. troops, the network said. Williams, who has traveled to Iraq four times, wrote on his blog Wednesday: "I've been trying to get here for some time."

Vice President Joe Biden, in a somber assessment of the road ahead, predicted Sunday that American casualties would climb in Afghanistan as the Obama administration shifts military priorities in the battle against terrorism. "We've inherited a real mess" in Afghanistan, Biden said. "We're about to go in and try to essentially reclaim territory that's been effectively lost. . . . All of this means we're going to be engaging the enemy more now."