Karzai

Former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed by a suicide bomber on Tuesday in his home in the capital, the latest in a series of high-profile assassinations to rock the country in recent months. Rabbani was the head of a government panel set up last year to try to begin negotiations with the Taliban, and his death was seen as a serious blow to those still-nascent efforts. The bomber, who apparently had explosives concealed in his turban, entered Rabbani's home in an upscale Kabul neighborhood on the pretext of visiting him, said Gen. Mohammed Zaher, the head of criminal investigation for the Kabul police.

A suicide bomber with explosives packed into his turban killed the mayor of Kandahar on Wednesday -- the latest in a wave of assassinations that claimed the life of President Hamid Karzai's half-brother earlier this month. The assailant apparently mingled with a crowd of constituents meeting Mayor Ghulam Hamidi, who had lived in the United States for years before returning to Afghanistan and taking up his dangerous post. The blast killed at least one other person, a provincial spokesman said.

A suicide bomber struck a Kandahar mosque where a memorial service was being held Thursday for the assassinated half brother of President Hamid Karzai. The attack killed at least four people and could mark the start of a violent power struggle in the wake of Ahmed Wali Karzai's death. A number of high-ranking officials were present at the time of the attack, according to the Kandahar provincial government. The dead included a prominent cleric and a child, and 15 other people were injured, the Interior Ministry said.

A suicide bomber struck a Kandahar mosque where a memorial service was being held Thursday for the assassinated half brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The attack killed at least four people and could mark the start of a violent power struggle in southern Afghanistan in the wake of Ahmed Wali Karzai's death. A number of high-ranking officials were present at the time of the attack, according to the Kandahar provincial government. The dead included a prominent cleric and a child, and 15 other people were injured, the Interior Ministry said.

A suicide bombing killed five French soldiers in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, representing one of France's largest one-day losses of the war. The attack took place in the Tagab district of Kapisa province, provincial spokesman Sabor Wafa said. NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed the deaths of five service members without specifying the nationality; French officials subsequently said the slain troops were French. France has said it will begin a phased withdrawal of its troops in Afghanistan.

For the Americans trying to pacify the south of Afghanistan, Ahmed Wali Karzai might prove even more troublesome in death than he was in life. The younger half brother of President Hamid Karzai, shot to death in his Kandahar home Tuesday by a trusted family associate who was also a commander in the Afghan police force, was the principal power broker in Kandahar province, the ancestral home of the Karzai clan. His vast influence, rooted in business and family connections, made him a seemingly indispensible Western ally in a long-volatile region considered pivotal to the success of the American-led military effort.

President Hamid Karzai's powerful and controversial half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was shot and killed Tuesday by a senior member of his police security detail — an assassination that could set off a chaotic power struggle in a province considered key to Western military efforts. Ahmed Wali Karzai was the undisputed kingmaker of Kandahar province, the ancestral home of the Karzai clan, and word of his death sent shock waves through the province and Afghanistan's wider political world.

As U.S. commanders prepare to bring home 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by year's end, the drawdown is calling fresh attention to the tangle of woes confronting the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. For much of his second term, which got off to an acrimonious start in 2009 with a fraud-tainted election, the Afghan leader has seemingly lurched from one crisis to the next. But recent weeks have seen an unusual convergence of complex and, in some cases, long-festering problems.

Are Republicans rushing to President Obama's left when it comes to Afghanistan? Not quite. But as they calibrate their pitch to an increasingly war-weary nation, some of the GOP presidential hopefuls have signaled support for a more significant drawdown plan than the one the president is expected to unveil in a primetime address this evening. That position, still evolving and with varying degrees of nuance, puts the candidates at odds with John McCain, the party's 2008 nominee, who recently warned them against taking an "isolationist" stance.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed Saturday that the United States had been in contact with the Taliban about a possible political settlement in the war here, which has dragged on for nearly a decade. His comments came as violence continued to rage across Afghanistan: Three suicide bombers attacked a police compound in Kabul's old city Saturday, killing four security officials and five civilians. And the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said, without offering details, that two of its troops were killed in separate insurgent attacks in southern Afghanistan.