Taliban

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.

Once military victory is complete in Afghanistan, should the United States expand the war on terrorism against other nations? If yes, who's next and why? If no, why not? Send essays of about 200 words by Dec. 17, including a phone number for verification, to Voices/Taliban, The Inquirer, Box 41705, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101. Send faxes to 215-854-4483 and e-mail to inquirer.letters@phillynews.com. Questions? Call Kevin Ferris, readers' editor, at 215-854-4543.

MAZAR-I-SHARIF. Herat. Kabul. Jalalabad. Kandahar. Faster than you can say "quagmire," the Taliban is fleeing cities across Afghanistan. A week ago, critics of the U.S.-led military campaign were insisting that the Taliban wouldn't budge, that American bombs were only killing civilians, that Ramadan and winter would lock in place the Taliban's advantage on the ground, and that the coalition supporting the war was disintegrating. Now the Taliban is disintegrating. Why? Because the crisis of confidence Osama bin Laden sought to foment in the West has taken hold in Afghanistan instead.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Police fired warning shots to disperse hundreds of stone-hurling Afghans yesterday to protest Quran burning in the U.S. At least 35 police officers and 10 protesters were reportedly wounded; two of them had gunshot wounds. Though a small American church in Florida backed off its threat to destroy the holy book to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, several copycat burnings were posted on the Internet. Up to 800 protesters gathered on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, chanting "Death to America" and listening to fiery speeches.

KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide attacker with a bomb in his turban posed as a Taliban peace envoy and assassinated a former Afghan president who for the past year headed a government council seeking a political settlement with the insurgents. Yesterday's attack, carried out in former President Burhanuddin Rabbani's Kabul home, dealt a harsh blow to attempts at ending a decade of war. The killing of Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik and one of the wise old men of Afghan politics, will blunt efforts to keep in check the regional and ethnic rivalries that help feed the insurgency.

TO THE Taliban (aka letter-writer Mark F. Walker): First of all, how dare you write such a letter! (And what nerve the Daily News has to print it!) How dare you mock us Americans! The Taliban have absolutely no right on our American soil. Did you leave Iraq in fear? Fear for your lives and family? Did you come to America for freedom and safety? Are you threatening America? You should be the one trembling with the tremors when we find you! Do you have a job? Are you paying taxes?

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that if security concerns make it impossible to set up a Taliban political office in Afghanistan, then it should be established in another Islamic country, like Saudi Arabia, or in Turkey. If the Taliban opened an office, it would be seen as a willingness to talk peace and signal their intention to try to find a nonviolent solution to an insurgency that has cost the lives of thousands. Karzai's comments came one day after an Indian newspaper reported that plans were being finalized for a Taliban office in the Gulf state of Qatar.

KABUL, Afghanistan - On the first day of its promised spring offensive, the Taliban used a 12-year-old boy as a suicide bomber in an attack yesterday that killed four civilians, President Hamid Karzai said. It was one of several attacks across the country that killed seven people, government officials said. The insurgent movement announced in a statement Saturday that it would step up operations against military bases, convoys and Afghan officials, including members of the peace council working to reconcile with top insurgent leaders.

KABUL, Afghanistan - The massive Taliban truck bomb that exploded outside an American military base in a restive eastern district injured nearly 80 U.S. troops and killed five Afghans, Western and Afghan officials said yesterday. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place Saturday evening in the Sayedabad district of Wardak province. That is the same district where insurgents last month shot down a U.S. Chinook helicopter, killing 30 American troops, the majority of them Navy SEALs, including some from the unit responsible for killing Osama bin Laden.

In mid-March, when Gen. David Petraeus returned from Kabul to testify before Congress, an amazing thing happened. The media hardly paid any attention. With revolutions popping up all over the Middle East, and the United States newly embroiled in Libya, the conflict in Afghanistan has vanished from the news pages. The Afghan war has become the forgotten war. When reminded of it by pollsters, nearly two-thirds of Americans say the war is not worth fighting, and many of the war's onetime supporters have become doubters.

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 - 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.

Annan: Plan is Syria's last chance DAMASCUS, Syria - International envoy Kofi Annan gave a bleak assessment of the crisis in Syria on Tuesday, saying violence remains at "unacceptable levels" and warning that his peace plan is the country's last chance to avert a disastrous civil war. Annan insisted there is still hope and said the presence of U.N. observers has had a calming effect on the crisis, which has killed at least 9,000 people since...

By Khan Mohammad Danishju Despite President Obama's surprise visit to Afghanistan last week to sign a far-reaching agreement committing the United States to long-term support of the embattled nation, many Afghans remain fearful about what will happen after the last of the foreign security forces depart at the end of 2014. One indication of this growing concern is the increasing number of Afghans leaving the country. According to Mohammad Nader Farhad, a spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 30,000 Afghans sought asylum in Europe in 2011, a 30 percent increase over the previous year.

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 - President Obama sought to use a surprise visit to Afghanistan to start lowering the curtain on the longest war in U.S. history. But as Taliban-led insurgents showed only hours after Obama flew home Wednesday, the bloodletting appears far from over. At least three suicide attackers struck a heavily guarded housing complex for international workers in Kabul, and the Taliban declared the start of a spring offensive, a dark bookend to Obama's brief overnight visit that contrasted starkly with his assertion that the conflict is winding down.

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.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - Taliban militants armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades battled their way into a prison in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, freeing close to 400 prisoners, including at least 20 described by police as "very dangerous" insurgents, authorities and the militants said. The raid by more than 100 fighters was a dramatic display of the strength of the insurgency gripping the nuclear-armed country. The escaped prisoners may now rejoin the fight, giving momentum and a propaganda boost to a movement that has killed thousands of Pakistani officials and ordinary citizens since 2007.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban insurgents struck the heart of the Afghan capital and three eastern cities Sunday, firing automatic weapons and grenades at embassies, government buildings, and NATO bases as they launched the spring fighting season with the boldest and most complex assault in years. The multipronged attacks show the Taliban and their allies are far from beaten and underscored the security challenge facing government forces as U.S. and NATO forces draw down. The majority of international combat troops are scheduled to leave by the end of 2014.

ISLAMABAD - The United States is drastically reducing the number of aid projects in Pakistan as part of reforms aimed at improving the distribution of billions of dollars in funding, the top U.S. aid official said Friday. The total amount of civilian aid will remain the same, but the United States hopes the reorganization will produce better, higher profile outcomes that can win hearts and minds in a country where anti-American sentiment is rampant, said Rajiv Shah, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development.