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WASHINGTON -- The killing of Osama bin Laden deep in Pakistan is sure to fuel the debate over the Obama administration's strategy in Afghanistan, where 100,000 troops are still fighting a war to destroy Al Qaeda. And the raid, conducted without the cooperation or even advance knowledge of Pakistan, raised fresh doubts about the lengthy American effort to turn it into a trustworthy partner in the hunt for terrorists. As President Obama approaches a critical period in deciding how many troops to pull out of Afghanistan -- and how fast -- the deadly raid on Al Qaeda's leader called into question many of the administration's basic assumptions about how to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for Islamic terrorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a landmark trade agreement on Sunday, auguring a thaw between these two perennially suspicious neighbors and handing the Obama administration a rare victory in its beleaguered war effort in Afghanistan. The United States had prodded the two countries to sign the accord, calculating that it would bolster the Afghan economy by expanding its trade routes and curbing rampant smuggling. The pact would cover a multitude of trade and transit issues, ranging from import duties to port access. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- With American troops pouring into insurgent strongholds in Afghanistan and the United States succeeding in killing insurgent leaders with drone attacks in Pakistan, the Obama administration is beginning to consider whether it has gained the upper hand sufficiently to justify an effort to begin talks with the Taliban. President Obama met with his war cabinet on Friday, and the issue of reconciling with the Taliban is gaining traction, even as administration officials debate whether the time is right. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Obama administration's ambitious civilian push in Pakistan and Afghanistan will keep thousands of Americans in those countries for years -- rebuilding Afghan agriculture, rooting out corruption and using the local media to counter anti-American sentiment. The steps, laid out in a 30-page policy paper to be released Thursday by the State Department, are the most detailed blueprint yet for the civilian part of the administration's strategy in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan punctuated Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's arrival here with deadly attacks on Wednesday, underscoring their ability to cause chaos even in the face of offensives on both sides of the border. In Pakistan, a devastating car bomb tore through a congested market in the northwest city of Peshawar, killing as many as 101 people, many of them women and children. Pakistani authorities said the attack was the country's most serious in two years, and the deadliest ever in Peshawar, which has become a front line for Taliban efforts to destabilize the government through violence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When President Obama named two marquee diplomats as his special emissaries to the Middle East and to Afghanistan and Pakistan last January, many here wondered whether they would eclipse Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Nine months later, the two envoys, Richard C. Holbrooke and George J. Mitchell, are the ones fighting to stay in the limelight. For reasons having to do with personality clashes, deteriorating conditions on the ground and the sheer difficulty of reconciling old enemies, Mr. Holbrooke and Mr. Mitchell are both struggling with their portfolios, widely acknowledged to be the most treacherous in American foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Residents flooded out of the Swat Valley by the thousands on Tuesday as the government prepared to mount a new military campaign against Taliban militants and as a much-criticized peace accord with the insurgents fell apart. People crammed into cars and buses and headed south after the local government told residents to leave Swat before a government military offensive. On Sunday, black-turbaned Taliban fighters seized control of Mingora, Swat's capital. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The big idea behind the Obama administration's long-in-the-making policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan was that the two countries are inextricably linked. The key to stabilizing Afghanistan, the White House concluded five weeks ago, is a stable and cooperative Pakistan. That calculation has been utterly scrambled by the Taliban offensive in western Pakistan, which has forced the United States to concentrate on the singular task of preventing further gains in Pakistan by an Islamic militant insurgency that has claimed territory just 60 miles from Islamabad. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports that Germany, as cited by Government security officials in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 22, 2007, faces increased risk of terrorist attacks due to its military involvement in Afghanistan. Three German residents, believed to be Islamic militants, informs German Federal Criminal Police, were arrested in Pakistan. In July 6, Germany avoided a terrorist attack when two bombs, hidden in a suitcase on trains, failed to explode.

The article informs that Shaukat Aziz, Prime Minister of Pakistan, has disclosed that people sympathetic to the Taliban had been active in the frontier regions near the border with Afghanistan. The prime minister accused the weak authority of the Afghan government. Aziz said that the core of the problem is in Afghanistan.

The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on Pakistan to expand and reorient its fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, warning that failing to do so would undercut the new strategy and troop increase for Afghanistan that President Obama is preparing to approve, American officials say. While Afghanistan has dominated the public discussion of Mr. Obama's strategy, which officials say could be announced as early as this week, Pakistan is returning to center stage in administration planning. As the president traveled to Asia, his national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, was quietly sent to Islamabad, its capital. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Until now, the successive American generals in charge of the war in Afghanistan have argued that their responsibilities ended at the border with Pakistan. But the choice of a new and very different breed of general to take over the seven-year-old fight may mean the old mind-set has begun to change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A string of successful operations recently killing or capturing high-level figures from Al Qaeda, particularly in the tribal areas of Pakistan, has fueled the argument inside the Obama administration about the necessity of a substantial troop buildup in Afghanistan, officials said. Administration officials said the United States had eliminated more than half of its top targets over the last year, severely constricted Al Qaeda's capacity to operate and choked off a lot of its financing. The sense of progress against Al Qaeda and its allies has helped shape the internal debate over the best way to fight in Afghanistan as President Obama explores alternatives to a large escalation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After a week of strong criticism here and abroad over its inaction, the Pakistani military deployed fighter jets and helicopter gunships to flush out hundreds of Taliban militants who overran the strategic district of Buner last week, the military said Tuesday. Pakistan also agreed to move 6,000 troops from its Indian border to fight militants on its western border with Afghanistan, according to a Pakistani official who did not want to be identified discussing troop movements in advance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]