WORLD
October 24, 2009 | By Paul Richter
The senior envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan sought Friday to dispel suggestions that he had been sidelined during dramatic diplomacy in Afghanistan because of his stormy relationship with the Afghan president. Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke acknowledged that he had been in Washington, rather than Kabul, last weekend as Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and other senior U.S. officials pressured a reluctant Karzai to agree to a runoff election, which has been scheduled for Nov. 7. Holbrooke, in a State Department news conference, said he had remained in Washington to take part in deliberations on whether to overhaul the U.S. strategy and send thousands more troops to Afghanistan.
WORLD
January 15, 2004 | Nicholas Riccardi, Times Staff Writer
As children walked to the school next door, a suicide bomber detonated a car laden with explosives Wednesday outside a police station here, killing at least two people and injuring dozens in the latest attack on symbols of authority in this country, Iraqi police said. The assault came on a day when U.S. forces announced the capture near the city of Ramadi of former Baath Party leader Khamis Sirhan Mohammed.
WORLD
June 20, 2004 | Mary Curtius, Times Staff Writer
The government, scrambling to assemble one of the world's largest embassies amid the violence and chaos of Iraq, is grappling with problems in staffing, financing and security. Since January, the State Department has been trying to build a team of hundreds of diplomats, as well as specialists from other agencies and support staff -- some pulled hastily from other overseas postings -- to help rebuild a nation in the midst of war.