WORLD
March 15, 2011 | Alex Rodriguez and Aimal Yaqubi
A suicide bomber killed at least 33 people at an army recruitment center in northern Afghanistan on Monday, underscoring the vulnerability of Afghan security forces as they struggle to assume more responsibility for safeguarding the country from Taliban insurgents. The Taliban took responsibility for the attack, the insurgency's second strike on an army recruitment center in the city of Kunduz in 12 weeks. A suicide bombing at a different recruitment center Dec. 19 killed nine Afghan soldiers and police officers and injured a dozen other people.
WORLD
March 10, 2011 | By Alex Rodriguez and Zulfiqar Ali, Los Angeles Times
A suicide bombing killed at least 34 people and injured more than 40 at a funeral held by an anti-Taliban tribal militia Wednesday in northwest Pakistan, prompting militia leaders to angrily rebuke the government for failing to provide enough support for their battle against insurgents. The attack occurred in the village of Adezai, about 15 miles south of the city of Peshawar and just east of the volatile tribal areas where Al Qaeda and Taliban militants maintain strongholds. A teenage boy appeared at the funeral and was thought to be a mourner, witnesses and local police said.
WORLD
December 13, 2010 | Borzou Daragahi
Taliban insurgents killed six members of the American-dominated international military force in southern Afghanistan in a single attack Sunday, Western officials announced. A news release from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul, the Afghan capital, gave no further details about the attack, or the nationalities of the service members killed. The New York Times, which has a reporter and photographer traveling with American forces in southern Afghanistan, reported that all six soldiers killed were U.S. troops at a remote outpost near the town of Zhari, in Kandahar province.
WORLD
December 7, 2010 | By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
A pair of suicide bombers attacked a large gathering of anti-Taliban elders inside a government compound in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing at least 41 people in one of the worst terrorist strikes in the volatile tribal belt this year. The attack occurred in the town of Ghalanai at the administrative headquarters of Mohmand, a region along the Afghan border that continues to see periodic clashes between Taliban militants and Pakistani troops. A meeting was underway at the compound between leaders of a local anti-Taliban militia and a top Mohmand official, authorities said.
WORLD
October 9, 2010 | Laura King and Aimal Yaqubi
The pro-Western governor of a key northern Afghanistan province and at least 18 other people were killed Friday in a massive explosion as they prayed in a crowded mosque, officials said. Mohammed Omar, the governor of Kunduz province, had warned of the dangers of the growing influence of the Taliban and other insurgent groups in Afghanistan's north. His death was the latest in a string of deadly assaults on government officials, including the assassination last week of a deputy governor in Ghazni province.
WORLD
August 8, 2010 | Laura King and My-Thuan Tran
Taliban fighters gunned down a 10-member international medical team, including six Americans, in the wilds of northern Afghanistan, the aid group and local officials said Saturday, in an ambush that highlighted the growing dangers faced by foreign charity organizations in the country. The aid workers, who also included two Afghans, a German and a Briton, were attacked Thursday in a remote forested area of Badakhshan province as they were returning from a mission to provide eye care to rural villagers, according to provincial police and the International Assistance Mission, the Kabul-based group that organized the trip.