NY Times: After a six-month campaign, the Pakistani military is claiming victory over the Taliban in Bajaur, a northern sliver of the tribal areas, saying the militants have suffered heavy losses and have been pushed over the border into Afghanistan. As evidence, the military this month showed off t...

NY Times: HERE is a proposition that is bound to cut deep into the national psyche: Should the United States seek to negotiate with some of the same people who gave sanctuary to Osama bin Laden prior to the Sept. 11 attacks? President Obama is sending an additional 17,000 American troops to Afghanis...

NY Times: The Taliban and the Pakistani Army signed a truce last month in Swat, the once popular tourist area just an hour north of the capital. But far from establishing peace, the pact seems to have allowed the Taliban free rein to expand their harsh religious rule. Just days after the truce was s...

Max Boot: I have just returned from Afghanistan shocked by the depth of the disconnect between reality and reporting. The coalition officers that I spoke with expressed confidence that with the U.S. reinforcements now flowing into the country, they will be able to score victories against insurgents ...

Guardian: The top US diplomat in Kabul warned ­yesterday that Pakistan posed a bigger security challenge to America and the world than Afghanistan, as Islamabad grappled with the latest terrorist attack on its soil and the escalating Taliban ­insurgency on its north-western border. Christopher Del...

Reuters: Pakistani forces have defeated Islamist militants in a strategically important region on the Afghan border and expect to clear militants out of other areas by the end of the year, a commander said on Saturday. Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun regions, known as agencies, are s...

NY Times, Thom Shanker: As part of its buildup in Afghanistan, the Pentagon plans to deploy billions of dollars in heavily armored vehicles, spy planes, jamming technology and even experimental ground-penetrating radar to defend troops from increasingly lethal roadside bombs. More than 175 American ...

Independent: British soldiers are engaged in "a surreal mini civil war" with growing numbers of home-grown jihadists who have travelled to Afghanistan to support the Taliban, senior Army officers have told The Independent. Interceptions of Taliban communications have shown that British jihadists –...

Ralph Peters: THE 36,000 US troops in Afghanistan are prisoners of war. They're still armed and fighting. But their fate lies in Pakistan's hands, not ours. It's time to rethink our nonstrategy in Kabul. We got our initial actions right in the autumn of 2001, slaughtering terrorists, toppling the Ta...

Times: Washington sent Special Forces into Pakistan last summer after intercepting a call by the Pakistani army chief referring to a notorious Taleban leader as a “strategic asset,� a new book has claimed. The intercept was ordered to confirm suspicions that the Pakistani military were still act...