Nangarhar

They had to hold the funeral at a big church in Palmdale. Matthew Ramsey , a native of nearby Quartz Hill , was just 20, but the young soldier's life had already touched many. Inside the crowded sanctuary were his buddies from childhood sports, former teachers and counselors, fellow sheriff's Explorers and other military veterans. His son, not yet 2 years old, was up front with Ramsey's young widow, pregnant again but barely showing. Images of Ramsey were projected on a screen: One showed him as a toddler, laughing atop his tricycle.

U.S. and Afghan forces working with Russian agents destroyed millions of dollars' worth of drugs at several heroin and opium production facilities in Afghanistan during an unprecedented joint operation, officials said Friday. The raid in Nangarhar province stopped a huge drug production base in the mountains near the Pakistani border, Viktor Ivanov, head of Russia's Federal Drug Control Service, said at a news conference in Moscow. Officials said about 70 men, including U.S. and Afghan troops and four Russian drug control agents, took over the facilities Thursday.

It began with a visit by a San Diego businesswoman who volunteered at an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan after the Taliban was pushed from power in 2001. Fary Moini, the owner of two tuxedo shops, was shocked by the poverty and despair at the overcrowded site just across the border from Afghanistan, and moved by the sorrow and confusion she saw in the eyes of the children. When she returned home, she appealed to her fellow Rotary Club members to help do something -- anything -- for the Afghans.

A wave of violence swept across Afghanistan on Saturday, leaving five American troops and dozens of Afghans dead and underscoring the Taliban's growing reach. The bloodshed comes as Western allies try to shore up stability amid an election process increasingly marred by fraud allegations. Militant attacks had long been concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of the troubled nation, but in recent weeks have spread to the normally quieter northern and western regions, with Saturday a case in point.

Two earthquakes struck eastern Afghanistan in the predawn hours today, killing at least 15 people and destroying dozens of homes, a government spokesman said. Spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai said the two quakes were centered about 50 miles east of Kabul, the capital. He said at least 20 people were hurt and an estimated 100 homes had been destroyed. The U.S. Geological Survey reported that Nangarhar province was hit by a magnitude 5.5 quake about 2 a.m. and a magnitude 5.

In the country where the Sept. 11 plot was hatched and its Al Qaeda masterminds found shelter, public knowledge of the link between the devastating events of a decade ago and today's war has grown hazy. Nearly half of all Afghans are under the age of 15, too young to have a firsthand recollection of that day, or the U.S.-led invasion that began less than a month later. Among older people, even those grateful that the invasion ended Taliban rule, there is a sense that the conflict has moved far beyond its original impetus.

An Afghan province has banned women from performing on TV and radio, declaring female entertainers un-Islamic, a provincial official said. The ban in Nangarhar, an eastern province heavily patrolled by U.S.-led troops hunting for Islamic militants, also includes women presenters of news, the official said. The move follows a heavily debated decision by Kabul Television in January to show an old tape of Parasto, a popular female singer.