FT.com - Afghanistan

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British troops to depart Helmand town

Mar 11, 2010 3:12pm

Control of Musa Qala, the scene of heavy fighting in 2006, will be handed to US forces in a move that will allow soldiers to be redeployed to the centre of the province...

Iran discloses Afghan role in guerrilla leader's capture

Mar 10, 2010 5:02am

Iran's president acknowledges for the first time that Afghan and Pakistani intelligence helped his government to hunt down the leader of an ethnic opposition movement...

Brown draws fresh ire over military cash

Mar 7, 2010 1:11pm

The UK prime minister faces fresh criticism over military spending after the Conservatives attack his pledge to buy vehicles for troops in Afghanistan falls short of previous commitments...

Tough road ahead for Afghanistan transfer

Mar 4, 2010 9:53am

America and its allies face a 'daunting' task in Afghanistan and 'it is much too early' to predict how it will turn out, says Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative to the region....

Focus in Marjah turns to building government

Mar 1, 2010 3:21pm

The initial phase of the military offensive in southern Afghanistan to wrest Marjah from insurgent control has largely ended and the more daunting task of building a credible government has begun, according to senior US and Afghan officials...

Germans agree to boost Afghan troop mission

Feb 26, 2010 10:13am

The Berlin government secured broad parliamentary backing to raise its level of troops in Afghanistan from 4,500 to up to 5,350, although cross-party consensus over the mission looked shaky...

Pakistan court blocks Baradar extradition

Feb 26, 2010 9:40am

A Pakistani provincial high court has blocked the extradition of captured Afghan Taliban leaders including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in an unexpected twist to a case seen an example of Islamabad's growing commitment to hunt down islamist militants...

Pakistan to hand Taliban chief to Kabul

Feb 24, 2010 10:57am

Islamabad has agreed to send the captured rebel commander to Afghanistan in the latest sign that it is bowing to US pressure to distance itself from Afghan insurgents...

Nato promises to fill Afghan gap

Feb 23, 2010 4:31pm

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato's secretary-general, said that 'possible shortfalls will be filled' as the withdrawal of Dutch troops from Afghanistan becomes likely...

Fears over Karzai move on election watchdog

Feb 23, 2010 8:59am

Western diplomats fear a decree signed by Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, granting him control of an independent election watchdog will remove a vital bulwark against attempts at poll fraud...

Afghan admits plot to bomb New York subway

Feb 22, 2010 5:07pm

An Afghan immigrant to the US pleaded guilty to plotting a bomb attack on the New York subway last September to coincide with the eighth anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on the city...

Afghan civilians killed in Nato airstrike

Feb 22, 2010 5:04pm

At least 33 people, including women and children, were killed after an aircraft fired on civilians mistakenly thought to be a convoy of insurgents in southern Uruzgan province...

Dutch departure saps Afghan effort

Feb 22, 2010 11:56am

The collapse of the Netherlands coalition over an extension of the country's Afghan mission will make other governments warier of new commitments or expanding existing ones...

Banker feeds crony capitalism in Afghanistan

Feb 21, 2010 11:58pm

Kabul Bank's close ties with President Hamid Karzai's circle reflects the defining feature of Afghanistan's post-Taliban order...

Crisis highlights war fatigue in Europe

Feb 21, 2010 1:55pm

The collapse of the Dutch government over whether to keep its soldiers in Afghanistan highlights the difficulty that the US and Nato face in convincing allies to provide more resources for an unpopular war...