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Reports on the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in Afghanistan. Aims in improving foreign relations between the two countries; Plans providing assistance for the rebuilding of the Afghan economy; Concerns regarding rival warlords in the region.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Obama, speaking to an American television audience on Tuesday night from Bagram Air Base, declared that he had traveled here to herald a new era in the relationship between the United States and Afghanistan, ''a future in which war ends, and a new chapter begins.'' Mr. Obama's address, during an unannounced visit to sign a strategic partnership agreement with President Hamid Karzai that sets the terms for relations after the departure of American troops in 2014, was a chance for him to make an election-year case that he is winding down a costly and increasingly unpopular war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- Seeking to project a united front on Afghanistan after a spate of bloody setbacks on the battlefield, President Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain pledged on Wednesday that their countries would stick to the timetable for winding down the war by the end of 2014. While acknowledging the complications posed by the recent massacre of 16 Afghans, apparently by a lone American soldier, and the loss of 6 British soldiers to a roadside bomb, Mr. Obama and Mr. Cameron insisted that the American-led coalition was making gains in preparing Afghans to take over their own security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The killing of two American servicemen and the eruption of deadly anti-American protests in Afghanistan confronts President Obama with a potential political weakness in a foreign policy that has so far offered few easy targets to Republican candidates eager for an opening. But the White House and the Obama campaign believe that, if anything, the bloodshed in Afghanistan will reinforce the sentiments of a large majority of Americans who want to get the troops out of there as soon as possible. This, the president's aides said, will constrain Mitt Romney or other Republicans seeking to benefit from a perception that Mr. Obama's Afghan strategy has gone awry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- It did not take long for Mitt Romney to pounce on Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta's statement Wednesday that American troops could end their combat role in Afghanistan by mid-2013, 18 months sooner than expected. Within hours, Mr. Romney lambasted it as ''naive'' and ''misguided.'' But President Obama, far from disavowing the Pentagon chief, seems eager to debate his Republican critics about a withdrawal timetable that his advisers contend is strategically sound, and which also happens to be politically popular. The White House said that Mr. Panetta's remarks reflected the president's resolve, supported by his experience in Iraq, not to wage a ''war without end'' in Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- As President Obama began mulling his next big decision on troop levels in Afghanistan last January, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. quietly flew to Kabul to meet with President Hamid Karzai and tour the battlefield with the top American commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus. At a military base in Wardak Province, where the Taliban continue to pose a security threat, Mr. Biden listened with bewilderment as an American civilian told him about plans to dig a well in a nearby village. ''Why do they need a well?'' he asked, according to a person who was there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- President Obama declared Wednesday that the United States had largely achieved its goals in Afghanistan, setting in motion a substantial withdrawal of American troops in an acknowledgment of the shifting threat in the region and the fast-changing political and economic landscape in a war-weary America. Asserting that the country that served as a base for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks no longer represented a terrorist threat to the United States, Mr. Obama declared that the ''tide of war is receding.'' And in a blunt recognition of domestic economic strains, he said, ''America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- President Obama plans to announce his decision on the scale and pace of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan in a speech on Wednesday evening, an administration official said Monday. As he closes in on a decision, another official said, Mr. Obama is considering options that range from a Pentagon-backed proposal to pull out only 5,000 troops this year to an aggressive plan to withdraw within 12 months all 30,000 troops the United States deployed to Afghanistan as part of the surge in December 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- As the Obama administration nears a crucial decision on how rapidly to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan, high-ranking officials say that Al Qaeda's original network in the region has been crippled, providing a rationale for an accelerated reduction of troops. The officials said the intense campaign of drone strikes and other covert operations in Pakistan -- most dramatically the raid that killed Osama bin Laden -- had left Al Qaeda paralyzed, with its leaders either dead or pinned down in the frontier area near Afghanistan. Of 30 prominent members of the terrorist organization in the region identified by intelligence agencies as targets, 20 have been killed in the last year and a half, they said, reducing the threat they pose. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

WASHINGTON -- The State Department is warning hundreds of human rights activists, foreign government officials and businesspeople identified in leaked diplomatic cables of potential threats to their safety and has moved a handful of them to safer locations, administration officials said Thursday. The operation, which involves a team of 30 in Washington and embassies from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, reflects the administration's fear that the disclosure of cables obtained by the organization WikiLeaks has damaged American interests by exposing foreigners who supply valuable information to the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- With roadside bombs by far the leading killer of American troops in Afghanistan, the Obama administration has started a worldwide effort to stop the flow of ammonium nitrate, the fertilizer that is their basic ingredient, into the war ravaged country. But the campaign, dubbed Operation Global Shield, is running up against stubborn hurdles in neighboring Pakistan, where the police routinely wave tons of ammonium nitrate shipments across the border into Afghanistan despite that country's ban on imports of the chemical. It is unclear whether the border guards are fooled by clever attempts to disguise the shipments as benign or are paid to turn a blind eye, or both. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- Rampant corruption in Afghanistan provides the Taliban with their No. 1 recruiting tool, the Obama administration's special representative to the region, Richard C. Holbrooke, said Wednesday. But he insisted that the United States was taking adequate precautions to cut down on the misuse of billions of dollars in American aid to the country. Responding to deepening unease on Capitol Hill about where aid money is going, Mr. Holbrooke said recent reports of billions of dollars in cash being flown out of Kabul International Airport wrongly suggested that American civilian aid was being siphoned from Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- The new American military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, is pushing to have top leaders of a feared insurgent group designated as terrorists, a move that could complicate an eventual Afghan political settlement with the Taliban and aggravate political tensions in the region. General Petraeus introduced the idea of blacklisting the group, known as the Haqqani network, late last week in discussions with President Obama's senior advisers on Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to several administration officials, who said it was being seriously considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON WHILE the uproar set off by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's imprudent comments in Rolling Stone magazine has focused on the larger-than-life personalities involved, there is an important subtext: What the does all this drama suggest about how the Pentagon and the State Department are sharing responsibility for the war in Afghanistan? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- Six months after President Obama decided to send more forces to Afghanistan, the halting progress in the war has crystallized longstanding tensions within the government over the viability of his plan to turn around the country and begin pulling out by July 2011. Within the administration, the troubles in clearing out the Taliban from a second-tier region and the elusive loyalties of the Afghan president have prompted anxious discussions about whether the policy can work on the timetable the president has set. Even before the recent setbacks, the military was highly skeptical of setting a date to start withdrawing, but Mr. Obama insisted on it as a way to bring to conclusion a war now in its ninth year. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- When military officers and diplomats gathered in a secure room in the Pentagon on a recent Friday to get a video briefing from the Afghan battlefield, they were startled to see a youthful British diplomat in an open-neck shirt, rather than the familiar face and camouflage fatigues of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American commander. The diplomat's name is Mark Sedwill, the new senior civilian representative of NATO in Afghanistan, and on that day, he was acting as General McChrystal's proxy. It is a role Mr. Sedwill, 45, has taken on with increasing regularity in recent weeks, forging a tight relationship with the general that associates say carries echoes of the one in Iraq between Gen. David H. Petraeus and the American ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan C. Crocker. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- Beneath twinkling chandeliers and amid tables of pastry and crudites, the Obama administration set out Tuesday to charm President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, rounding up cabinet members and other V.I.P.'s to welcome him and his ministers at a State Department reception. The party capped a day of meetings meant to showcase the breadth and durability of the relationship between the United States and Afghanistan -- one that is more often characterized by the testy back-and-forth between this administration and the mercurial Afghan leader. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

TALLINN, Estonia -- Setting the stage for a gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States and other NATO countries adopted a plan here Friday that sets conditions for beginning to remove troops from a lead role in Afghan provinces by the end of this year. The plan, which NATO hopes to turn into a formal agreement with the Afghan government in July, would transfer authority to Afghans when they have met three criteria: a competent local police force, a durable civilian government and signs of reconciliation with the Taliban insurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- After more than a year of watching America's ability to influence President Hamid Karzai ebb, Obama administration officials now admit privately that the tough-love approach Mr. Obama adopted when he came to power may have been a big mistake. The difference in approach was evident in two recent scenes on Air Force One. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- A day after he delivered a scorching attack on the West for its conduct in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai telephoned Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday to express surprise that his comments had caused such a stir, administration officials said. Mr. Karzai, the officials said, told Mrs. Clinton that he had not meant to criticize the United States but rather Western news coverage of Afghanistan. In a speech on Thursday, Mr. Karzai accused the news media of spreading reports characterizing last year's presidential election as fraudulent ''to pressure me.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- This month, with President Hamid Karzai looking ahead to a visit to the White House, he received a terse note from aides to President Obama: Your invitation has been revoked. The reason, according to American officials, was Mr. Karzai's announcement that he was emasculating an independent panel that had discovered widespread fraud in Mr. Karzai's re-election last year. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Afghanistan's president declared Thursday that reaching out to the Taliban's leadership would be a centerpiece of his plan to end the eight-year-old war in his country, setting in motion a risky diplomatic gambit that could aggravate frictions with the United States. A 65-nation conference here intended to muster money and support for an Afghan war strategy instead exposed divisions between the Afghan government and its allies over the timetable for drawing down foreign forces and whether and how to reconcile with the leaders of the Taliban insurgency. [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]

For American civilians serving in Afghanistan, the last stop before they ship out to Kabul or Kandahar is a dilapidated, vaguely foreboding institution that once served as a farm colony for ''feeble-minded'' boys, and later was a state mental hospital. The Army and the Indiana National Guard have turned the windswept complex, known as Muscatatuck, into a simulacrum of a war-torn Afghan city, with a courthouse, a jail and a graffiti-smeared marketplace. While the table-flat farmland around here hardly evokes the Hindu Kush, this is where the government trains Americans who are part of the most ambitious civilian campaign the United States has mounted in a foreign country in generations -- a ''civilian surge'' intended to improve the lives of Afghans. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

America's involvement in Afghanistan could stretch on for years and cost upward of $10 billion annually just to finance an adequate Afghan security force, the overall commander in the region told Congress on Wednesday. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, one of the military's most influential generals, estimated that building and maintaining a combined army and police force of 400,000 -- a size that American commanders believe may eventually be needed to fully secure the country -- would cost more than $10 billion a year. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On a seven-hour trip from Kabul to a NATO meeting in Brussels last week, the two men in Kabul most responsible for American policy in Afghanistan exchanged few words, according to administration officials, holing up in separate compartments on their military plane. The quiet flight of the two officials, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and Karl W. Eikenberry, the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, reflects a chill between the two men that officials said took hold even before they staked out conflicting positions in the debate over how many added American troops to send to Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After months of anguished debate in the United States over how many new troops to send to Afghanistan, the numbers game switched to Europe on Friday, with NATO announcing that it planned to commit an additional 7,000 soldiers to the coalition in Afghanistan. NATO portrayed the pledge as a powerful vote of support for the American-led effort. But in Europe as in Washington, arithmetic on troops can get fuzzy. Of the 7,000 troops promised by NATO, from 1,500 to 2,000 are already in Afghanistan, sent months ago to bolster security during the presidential election. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama sent his top diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to Europe on Thursday to press sometimes balky NATO allies to contribute thousands of additional troops to his new strategy for turning the tide in the Afghanistan war. Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that some countries were confused by Mr. Obama's plan to begin bringing home American troops in July 2011. But she said that, over all, ''The response has been positive,'' and that she would work to clear up doubts over the American timetable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is far from clear that President Obama can depend on President Hamid Karzai to bring order to this violent country, but it is becoming clear that he will depend on Hillary Rodham Clinton to be his go-between in dealing with the mercurial Afghan leader. In a visit to Kabul, during which she held a 90-minute, one-on-one session with Mr. Karzai on Wednesday, and in an intense telephone call a few weeks ago in the aftermath of Afghanistan's election, Secretary of State Clinton has built an unlikely rapport with the Afghan leader, according to administration officials. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama sent his top diplomat to Afghanistan on Wednesday to press President Hamid Karzai to deliver ''measurable results'' on governance and corruption as the White House prepared specific new demands to accompany an American troop buildup. In an unannounced visit to Kabul, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Mr. Karzai privately that future civilian aid would depend in part on how his government performed in areas like developing an effective army and curbing cronyism, according to an American official. Publicly, she told reporters that Mr. Karzai had begun to tackle corruption but ''not nearly enough.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The disclosure that the United States ambassador in Kabul has expressed written opposition to deploying more American troops to Afghanistan lays bare the fierce debate within the Obama administration over the direction of the war, even after weeks of deliberations and with the president on the verge of a decision. The public airing of Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry's reservations bolsters the case of those in the president's circle, notably his vice president and some of his top political advisers, who remain skeptical of a request for 40,000 troops by the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, several officials said Thursday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country, three senior American officials said Wednesday. The position of the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, puts him in stark opposition to the current American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has asked for 40,000 more troops. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Even as President Obama leads an intense debate over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, administration officials say the United States is falling far short of his goals to fight the country's endemic corruption, create a functioning government and legal system and train a police force currently riddled with incompetence. Interviews with senior administration and military officials and recent reports assessing Afghanistan's progress show that nearly seven months after Mr. Obama announced a stepped-up civilian effort to bolster his deployment of 17,000 additional American troops, many civil institutions are deteriorating as much as the country's security. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Obama administration has told the government of Hamid Karzai that it believes he will be re-elected as president of Afghanistan for another five-year term, two administration officials said Sunday, even though the results from the disputed Aug. 20 vote are still under review because of evidence of widespread fraud. The United States and other NATO countries also told Mr. Karzai's government that they have pledged to help him wage an expanded campaign to peel away insurgent fighters from the Taliban, these officials said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For President Obama, the handshakes and hugs during his first visit to the United Nations last week masked a cold reality: nine months into his presidency, he is being forced to retool his most important foreign policy initiatives, from the war in Afghanistan to peace in the Middle East and his diplomatic overture to Iran. Mr. Obama's efforts to reach out to adversaries and break political deadlocks are running up against old enmities, insoluble differences and foreign leaders who simply do not see eye to eye with the president. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How do you persuade America's allies to stick with the plan in Afghanistan when the strategy itself is being reconsidered -- for the second time in six months? That is one of President Obama's primary challenges this week in New York as he tries for the first time to use his popularity around the world and his skills of persuasion at the United Nations -- friendly but unfamiliar territory -- to urge nervous allies to stick with what a month ago he called a ''war of necessity.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two former employees of a private contractor hired to provide security at the United States Embassy in Afghanistan charged that State Department officials were aware as early as 2007 that guards and supervisors were involved in lewd conduct. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, one of the former employees, James Gordon, a native of New Zealand who served as director of operations at the contractor, ArmorGroup North America, charged that he had spoken numerous times with State Department officials about significant problems that threatened security at the embassy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Japan's landmark election presents the Obama administration with an untested government, creating a new set of imponderables for a White House already burdened by foreign policy headaches in Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea. Inside the administration, the historic change in Tokyo is raising concerns that Japan may back away from supporting key American priorities like the war in Afghanistan or the redeployment of American troops in Asia, according to senior officials. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It was a heated debate during the Bush administration: What to do about evidence that Afghanistan's powerful defense minister was involved in drug trafficking? Officials from the time say they needed him to help run the troubled country. So the answer, in the end: look the other way. Today that debate will be even more fraught for a new administration, for the former defense minister, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, stands a strong chance of becoming the next vice president of Afghanistan. [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]

Reports on United States Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Kabul, Afghanistan. Mention of how Powell became the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit the country since 1976; Meeting between Powell and Hamid Karzai, the interim leader of Afghanistan; Highlights of Powell's remarks, including an assurance of long-term U.S. support for the rebuilding of Afghanistan; Description of the social and economic problems that challenge the stability of the country, including the damage caused by war.

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]

The government of President Hamid Karzai is preparing for the likelihood that he will have to face an election runoff with his main challenger, Afghanistan's ambassador here said Thursday, acknowledging an outcome that Western diplomats had been pushing for but that could complicate the debate over whether to send more American troops. The comments by the ambassador in Washington, Said Tayeb Jawad, were the first in which Mr. Karzai's government conceded that a runoff was likely, after weeks of investigation into stark cases of election fraud. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- For the United States, a recent tripling in the number of night raids by Special Operations forces to capture or kill Afghan insurgents has begun to put heavy pressure on the Taliban and change the momentum in the war in Afghanistan. For President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, the raids cause civilian casualties and are a rising political liability, so much so that he is now loudly insisting that the Americans stop the practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is by Helene Cooper, Thom Shanker and Dexter Filkins. WASHINGTON -- President Obama's top commander in Afghanistan flew to Washington on Tuesday to find out whether he would be fired for remarks he and members of his staff made that were contemptuous of senior administration officials, laying bare the disarray and enmity in a foreign-policy team that is struggling with the war. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In another blow to the Taliban senior leadership, Pakistani authorities have captured Mullah Abdul Kabir, a member of the group's inner circle and a leading military commander against American forces in eastern Afghanistan, according to a Pakistani intelligence official. American officials in the region and in Washington said they had received some indications of Mullah Kabir's detention but that they could not confirm it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama announced Tuesday that he would speed 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in coming months, but he vowed to start bringing American forces home in the middle of 2011, saying the United States could not afford and should not have to shoulder an open-ended commitment. Promising that he could ''bring this war to a successful conclusion,'' Mr. Obama set out a strategy that would seek to reverse Taliban gains in large parts of Afghanistan, better protect the Afghan people, increase the pressure on Afghanistan to build its own military capacity and a more effective government and step up attacks on Al Qaeda in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama issued orders to send about 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan as he prepared to address the nation Tuesday night to explain what may be one of the most defining decisions of his presidency. Mr. Obama conveyed his decision to military leaders late Sunday afternoon during a meeting in the Oval Office and then spent Monday phoning foreign counterparts, including the leaders of Britain, France and Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama said Tuesday that he was determined to ''finish the job'' in Afghanistan, and his aides signaled to allies that he would send as many as 25,000 to 30,000 additional American troops there even as they cautioned that the final number remained in flux. The White House said Mr. Obama had completed his consultations with his war council on Monday night and would formally announce his decision in a national address in the next week, probably on Tuesday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]