President Hamid Karzai

This country's constitutional convention came off the rails Thursday as officials adjourned the gathering in the face of a boycott by opponents of President Hamid Karzai. The delay was the most severe setback yet to this war-ravaged nation's attempt to put its vision of a secure future on paper, raising real concern that the historic gathering would end in failure.

Re "Afghans say U.S. is off track," Oct. 1 Excellent article. As an old anthropology/linguistics undergrad back in the late '50s, I agree with the Afghans' opinions. I sure hope President Obama has smart enough advisors to realize all of the complexities; we should talk with Afghans and the Taliban -- unlike Bush's team. Lance Fogan Valencia :: Mark Magnier's article got it right. In order to be successful, the allied effort in Afghanistan must rely on input from the knowledge, wants and needs of the average people.

President Hamid Karzai warned Wednesday that militants were receiving support from drug traffickers and that his nation could fall back into the hands of terrorists if its booming heroin trade wasn't stamped out. At a news conference with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Karzai said, "We will have terrorism attacking ... for quite some time." He also said there was "cooperation between the drug trade and terrorism." "The question of drugs ... is one that will determine Afghanistan's future..

President Hamid Karzai named officials on Saturday to oversee a parliamentary election, sealing a compromise with the United Nations and ending a damaging standoff with the West. Karzai's quarrel with Western donors over rules for September's vote led to a diplomatic shouting match with Washington this month that brought relations between the wartime allies to a new low. In Saturday's announcement, Karzai put a former judge and legal scholar in charge of the election commission, and also named an Iraqi and a South African to a separate election fraud panel, satisfying international pressure to include foreigners.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived today in Afghanistan, pressing U.S. calls for reform in President Hamid Karzai's government on the eve of his inauguration to another term. Clinton, whose visit was not publicly disclosed for security reasons until after she landed in the Afghan capital, was dining with Karzai at the presidential palace, where Thursday's swearing-in is to take place. Karzai is under intense Western pressure to stem corruption and graft in his government.

The speaker of Afghanistan's lower house of parliament, Younis Qanooni, on Saturday denounced a speech by President Hamid Karzai in which the Afghan leader blamed the West for last summer's fraud-ridden election. The parliament has been embroiled in a heated dispute with Karzai over conditions for parliamentary elections, sparring with him over his authority to appoint members of a fraud-auditing panel for the vote scheduled in September. In trying to downplay Karzai's angry speech Thursday, his aides contended that it was misconstrued.

The young lovers didn't stand a chance. In a desolate field on the edge of their village in northern Afghanistan, hundreds of men, stones in hand, closed in to carry out the mullah's death sentence, handed down after the pair eloped against the wishes of their families. "It was an act of great cruelty," said Mutasem Khan, an uncle of Abdul Qayuum, the 28-year-old man who was stoned to death this month in Kunduz province along with the village woman he had wooed, identified only as 19-year-old Siddiqa.

As President Obama weighs the military's request for up to 40,000 more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, election officials in the capital city of Kabul are combing through a sampling of more than 350 suspect ballot boxes for signs of fraud significant enough to have given President Hamid Karzai the majority he needed to win reelection without a runoff. The two issues cannot and should not be separated. No matter how many additional troops the United States and NATO send to Afghanistan, or which strategy Obama decides to employ against the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies, it cannot succeed without an Afghan government that is seen as legitimate by the people.

Afghan authorities plan to close thousands of polling stations and hire new poll workers to discourage the fraud that tarnished the August presidential election and forced a runoff set for Nov. 7, U.N. officials said Wednesday. President Hamid Karzai's rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, announced Wednesday that he was preparing for the runoff election, a day after Karzai acknowledged under intense U.S. pressure that he fell short of the 50% threshold needed for victory in the Aug. 20 vote.

The top United Nations official in Afghanistan, under criticism that he was not being tough enough with President Hamid Karzai over corruption, will not seek reappointment when his contract expires in March, the U.N. said Friday. Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide is following through on his previous intention to leave when his two-year contract is finished, U.N. spokesman Dan McNorton said. "This is not a question of resigning," he said. "Kai Eide is sticking to the timetable." McNorton said the decision was unrelated to the public clash between Eide and Peter Galbraith, his U.S. deputy.