Afghanistan

WASHINGTON - Ryan Crocker, the unflappable diplomat who became the civilian face of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over two administrations, is stepping down as ambassador to Afghanistan and retiring from the U.S. foreign service after a storied tenure in some of the world's most dangerous hot spots. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Tuesday that the veteran envoy would leave his post in Kabul this summer because of health reasons she declined to detail. His departure comes a year earlier than planned after Crocker, 62, came out of retirement in 2011 to take the helm of the embassy at President Obama's personal request.

Last week I read a book called Shakespeare in Kabul that probably upends everything you thought you knew about Afghanistan. It's an important book — and it's being published just after U.S. officials pledged to support Afghanistan for a decade beyond the exit of U.S. troops at the end of 2014. That deal isn't yet final. But if we want to maintain a long-term relationship with Afghanistan, more Americans need to understand the yearnings of ordinary Afghans. This moving tale of Afghan efforts to stage Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost reveals what might have been — and might still emerge one day — in Kabul.

WASHINGTON - President Obama welcomed new French President Francois Hollande to the White House on Friday, an initial meeting that came as world leaders feel a renewed sense of urgency to contain the European debt crisis. The two leaders spoke for about 20 minutes in the Oval Office, covering such issues as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria - including Hollande's pledge to draw down French combat troops in Afghanistan by the end of the year. Obama was scheduled to head to Camp David on Friday evening to welcome the leaders of eight of the world's richest countries, including Hollande, for the Group of Eight summit this weekend.

FORT LEAVENWORTH, KAN. - The attorney for the Army staff sergeant suspected of killing 16 Afghan civilians yesterday questioned the quality of the evidence against his client and said he planned to travel to Afghanistan to gather his own. John Henry Browne said he met with Robert Bales for 11 hours over two days at Fort Leavenworth, where his client is being held. He added that there was still a lot he didn't know about the March 11 shootings. "I don't know about the evidence in this case.

@PI_Billboard Centered:Tony Auth

Is there any way that the United States can engineer a decent exit from Afghanistan that leaves behind a stable country? The answer depends on Pakistan. If Pakistan stops providing the Afghan Taliban and other radical Islamists with safe havens, a stable Afghanistan is possible. Otherwise, Afghan prospects are grim and America's Afghan war is destined to fail. If you want to understand why, read the newest book by the world's foremost expert on the Taliban, the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A Marine from Hawley, in Wayne County in northeastern Pennsylvania, died Sunday in Afghanistan, the Defense Department said yesterday. Pfc. Serge Kropov, 21, died in Helmand province of a "nonhostile incident" that is under investigation, the department said. He was assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 16, Third Marine Aircraft Wing, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, Calif.

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze said the Soviet Union has suspended the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan because of persistent violations of a U.N.-negotiated agreement. "Let's wait and see," Shevardnadze told reporters at the United Nations yesterday. "It is necessary to stop the violations that take place. It is the most important thing. " In another development, 35 people were killed and more than 150 injured when a rocket landed in a central square in Kabul today during a rebel missile attack on the Afghan capital, the Soviet news agency Tass reported.

President Obama should take full advantage of the opportunity provided by the death of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden to dramatically reshape U.S. policy related to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. For a decade, this country has expended an inordinate amount of its resources, not to mention the more than 1,500 soldiers killed, to fight a war in Afghanistan that never promised to yield comparable strategic results. The cost was swallowed in the mistaken belief that a "war on terror" could be won if a decisive blow were struck on one front.

A top Foreign Ministry spokesman today said the Soviet Union has suspended its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan because of heavy attacks by rebels and hinted the pullout might not be completed by a Feb. 15 deadline. "The Soviet troops are being withdrawn due to the goodwill of the Soviet government," First Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh told a news conference. "They will be withdrawn in honorable conditions. " The current atmosphere of heavy attacks by insurgents with arms supplied by the United States, Pakistan and other countries "does not provide conditions for such a withdrawal of Soviet troops," Bessmertnykh said.

WASHINGTON - Ryan Crocker, the unflappable diplomat who became the civilian face of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over two administrations, is stepping down as ambassador to Afghanistan and retiring from the U.S. foreign service after a storied tenure in some of the world's most dangerous hot spots. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Tuesday that the veteran envoy would leave his post in Kabul this summer because of health reasons she declined to detail. His departure comes a year earlier than planned after Crocker, 62, came out of retirement in 2011 to take the helm of the embassy at President Obama's personal request.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - As U.S. frustration with Pakistan's six-month blockade of Afghanistan-bound supplies became painfully apparent at the NATO summit in Chicago, Pakistanis are growing worried that their government's negotiating strategy could cost their country millions of dollars in American aid and jeopardize its prospects for a voice in Afghanistan's postwar future. For weeks, U.S. and Pakistani officials have been negotiating a new set of transit fees that would pave the way for the reopening of routes that NATO convoys used to ferry fuel and nonlethal supplies from the southern port of Karachi to the Afghan border.

CHICAGO - NATO leaders on Monday adopted President Obama's exit strategy from the nearly 11-year-old U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan, cementing an "irreversible" pullout of foreign combat troops that will leave Afghan security forces with the leading role in combat operations by the summer of 2013. "We are now unified to responsibly wind down the war in Afghanistan," Obama declared at a news conference at the close of the two-day summit in his hometown, while acknowledging that serious risks persist.

KABUL, Afghanistan - It was what President Obama called a "war of necessity," a conflict thrust upon America by the 9/11 attacks. As NATO's mission here winds down nearly 11 years later, the insurgents remain undefeated, corruption runs rife, and the peace process is stuck in the sand. Such is the bleak reality of Afghanistan as Obama and leaders of about 60 countries and organizations prepare to meet Sunday and Monday in Chicago to map their way out of an unpopular war. The goal is to develop a strategy that does not risk a repeat of the chaos that followed the Soviet exit two decades ago, which paved the way for the rise of al-Qaeda.

WASHINGTON - President Obama welcomed new French President Francois Hollande to the White House on Friday, an initial meeting that came as world leaders feel a renewed sense of urgency to contain the European debt crisis. The two leaders spoke for about 20 minutes in the Oval Office, covering such issues as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria - including Hollande's pledge to draw down French combat troops in Afghanistan by the end of the year. Obama was scheduled to head to Camp David on Friday evening to welcome the leaders of eight of the world's richest countries, including Hollande, for the Group of Eight summit this weekend.

KABUL, Afghanistan - A gunman in a car assassinated a former high-ranking Taliban official working to end the decade-long war in Afghanistan, dealing a powerful blow Sunday to the fragile, U.S.-backed effort to bring peace to the country. Arsala Rahmani, a top member of the Afghan peace council and a senator in Parliament, was killed a week before a key NATO summit and just hours before President Hamid Karzai announced the third stage of a five-part transition that is supposed to put Afghan security forces in control of their country by the end of 2014.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan held talks with Pakistan's army chief Saturday aimed at improving border coordination, almost six months after American air strikes accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the frontier. Islamabad retaliated for the deaths in November by closing its border crossings to supplies meant for NATO troops in Afghanistan. The border remains closed despite U.S. pressure to reopen the route, which has long been one of the main ways to get goods and equipment to coalition forces.

WASHINGTON - Army investigators said Monday they found no bullet wound nor evidence of foul play in the death of a soldier in Afghanistan who died during a Skype video chat with his wife. Capt. Bruce Kevin Clark collapsed while speaking to his wife on May 1 from his base in Tarin Kot, Afghanistan, southwest of Kabul. His wife, Susan Orellana-Clark, has suggested that Clark was shot, citing a hole visible in the closet behind him that she believed was a bullet hole. Investigators said an initial probe showed no trauma to the body except that Clark broke his nose when he fell forward.

President Obama had every right to celebrate the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death with U.S. troops in Kabul. No one can doubt the magnitude of that achievement — under his command. But everything else about Obama's Afghan trip had a surreal feel, including his speech to the American public. After 11 years of war, the president had to slip in and out of the country under cover of darkness. Even more disturbing was how little resemblance the speech had to the facts on the ground.

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan soldier killed one U.S. Marine and wounded another before being shot to death in return fire Sunday in southern Afghanistan, the latest in a series of attacks against foreigners blamed on government forces within their own ranks. Nearly 20 such attacks this year have raised the level of mistrust between the U.S.-led coalition and their Afghan partners as NATO gears up to hand over security to local forces ahead of a 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of combat troops.