Ron Synovitz is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL.
General David Petraeus -- the U.S. military commander who oversaw "surge" operations that have helped stabilize Iraq -- is taking on an even broader assignment. The soldier-scholar with a doctorate from Princeton University is becoming the new head of U.S. Central Command -- a role that makes him responsible for U.S. military policy across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf region.
PRAGUE -- In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman has detailed the Pentagon's concerns in the war on terrorism, including difficulties in applying the lessons learned in Iraq to the conflict in Afghanistan.
The head of the election commission dismissed those reports, saying election fraud has not been possible in Azerbaijan since revisions that were introduced after parliamentary elections in 2005.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev appears set to win another five-year term of office after an election that was boycotted by the country's five largest opposition parties.
The Iraqi government has promised to send officials to northern Iraq to tackle violence against Christians there. The pledge comes amid a spate of killings of Christians in the northern city of Mosul, where violence against the minority community has prompted more than 1,000 families to flee.
Critics say a failure to bring Taliban into Afghanistan's political mainstream is a major obstacle to stabilization efforts. Now, word of possible peace talks between government and Taliban representatives comes as Western commanders conclude that military action alone cannot bring an end to the violence.
Seven years ago, the United States began bombing Taliban-ruled Afghanistan after its refusal to hand over Al-Qaeda leaders who plotted the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Since the collapse of the Taliban regime a few weeks later, the lives of many Afghans have changed for the better. But others' haven't, leaving them to wonder what the foreign forces have done for them.
Officials in Afghanistan have begun registering voters for next year's presidential election, in which Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he will seek a second five-year term.
Questions are swirling over the fate of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, with a Pakistani television channel reporting he has died of illness but Taliban spokesmen dismissing the report.
Iraq's parliament has passed a provincial elections law after months of bickering between Arabs and Kurds over the northern city of Kirkuk.
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, in New York this week for the opening of the UN General Assembly, has been making the rounds on the U.S. media circuit. The U.S. government will not let Ahmadinejad travel far outside New York City, but that hasn't stopped him from giving interviews to international news organizations.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is visiting Latvia's capital, Riga, for talks with the Latvian president and the foreign ministers of the three Baltic states -- Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
There was no immediate government response from Pakistan, but that country's military insists it will not allow foreign troops to carry out operations on its soil.
More than seven years after the Taliban destroyed the two giant Buddha statues at Bamiyan, an Afghan-led archaeological team has uncovered the remains of a third giant Buddha nearby, a 19-meter-long statue in a reclining posture. It's not the 300-meter sleeping Buddha described by a 7th-century Chinese traveler, but the chief archaeologist says it is an extraordinary discovery, and he thinks there is more to be found.
The top U.S. general in Afghanistan, David McKiernan, has called for a new investigation into air strikes last month in western Herat Province that UN and Afghan teams say killed 90 civilians, saying there is "emerging evidence" about the deadly incident.
When U.S. or NATO soldiers need to communicate with Afghan villagers, they rely on translators provided by private contractors. But for various reasons, translators in Afghanistan often don't relate everything they hear. And what is lost in translation can hurt efforts by NATO and the U.S.-led coalition to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. In the worst cases, innocent civilians can be arrested or wrongly targeted.
Militants in Afghanistan increasingly are carrying out attacks in and around Kabul, with Taliban commanders boasting of a strategy to cut off the capital. But that doesn't mean loyalty to the Taliban leadership is growing. Rather, experts say the insurgency in Afghanistan has become more diversified because the Taliban has been accepting loose alignments with factions that have grievances against the central government, but also have their own agendas.
In the aftermath of the resignation of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on August 18, political analysts have been focusing on how the political crisis in Islamabad could affect relations between Pakistan and two of its neighbors -- Afghanistan and India.
The resignation of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has analysts, government officials, and ordinary Pakistanis wondering about the future of the country.
The United States in the past month has confronted Islamabad with evidence of complicity between Pakistan's military and Taliban militants. The evidence reportedly links Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to last month's suicide bombing at the Indian Embassy in Kabul -- highlighting allegations of covert ties between Pakistani intelligence agents and militants operating out of Pakistan's tribal areas.
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