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The article discusses U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl who was captured by the Taliban terrorist group in 2009 after he walked away from his military post in Afghanistan, and it mentions how Bergdahl's story is the subject of the second season of the podcast "Serial." It states that Bergdahl was recovered when U.S. President Barack Obama facilitated a prisoner swap involving five Taliban detainees in 2014. Military deserters are examined, along with podcast narrator Sarah Koenig.

The article presents answers to questions on walked away from a remote Army outpost in eastern Afghanistan by U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl including leave his base, his disappearance affect his unit, and considering Bergdahl fit for service.

The article discusses the misbehavior before the enemy charge filed against Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl for leaving his remote Army base in eastern Afghanistan in 2009, wandering into enemy territory and endangering the safety of other military personnel.

The article reports on the details of U.S. Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl's disappearance in eastern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009.

Mitt Romney has made Afghanistan a showcase for his attacks on President Obama's foreign policy. He says Mr. Obama has undercut American interests by setting timetables for withdrawing troops, providing the Taliban -- who displayed their resilience with attacks over the weekend -- further reason to wait things out. He called Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta ''misguided and so naive'' for announcing plans to hand over primary combat responsibilities to Afghan forces next year and leave American troops mainly in training and other roles. But despite the tough critique, Mr. Romney has loosely embraced the main thrust of White House policy for troop levels after the election: a timetable for pulling out nearly all troops by the end of 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid a series of bloody and troubling episodes in Afghanistan that have inflamed Afghan opinion against the United States, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are now calling for a reassessment of American policy there -- suggesting that it may be time to withdraw troops sooner than the Obama administration has planned. Their views echo recent polls that show public support for the Afghan war has fallen sharply among voters of all parties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Their last meal was a picnic in the forest in the Sharrun Valley, high in the Hindu Kush mountains of northern Afghanistan. Returning home from a three-week trek on foot to deliver free medical care to the remotest regions of the country, the aid workers -- six Americans, a Briton, a German and four Afghans -- had just finished eating when they were accosted by gunmen with long dyed-red beards, the police said. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Gen. David H. Petraeus is expected to issue new guidelines shortly on the use of force in Afghanistan that expand restrictions on artillery strikes and aerial bombardment but clarify that troops have the right to self-defense. He is hoping to persuade the troops that the unpopular rules will pay off in trust won on the ground. General Petraeus's position may disappoint those in the military who believed that the protection of Afghan civilians was putting American troops at greater risk. During his confirmation hearings, General Petraeus fielded criticism from some members of Congress along those lines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Kabul police have cleared a United States Embassy vehicle of fault for a deadly collision on Friday that set off anti-American rioting near the embassy, a senior police official said Sunday. After the crash, hundreds of enraged onlookers threw rocks, chanted ''Death to America'' and set ablaze two American vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The United States military has recovered the body of the second of two American sailors abducted last week in a dangerous region south of Kabul, but it was not clear precisely how he had died. The body believed to be that of Petty Officer Third Class Jarod Newlove was found Wednesday afternoon in Yousuf Khiel, a village in the Baraki Barak District. The area, in southwestern Logar Province, is adjacent to Charkh District, where the two sailors were abducted last Friday after they drove their armored sport utility vehicle from a military base in Kabul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan officials said Monday that 52 people were killed in southern Afghanistan on Friday when a rocket fired by coalition forces slammed into a house where women and children had taken shelter from fighting between NATO troops and militants. But American officials disputed the account. If founded, it would be one of the worst cases of civilian casualties in the nine-year war, coming as a leak of thousands of military documents on Sunday casts new scrutiny on whether American and coalition forces have taken enough care to avoid civilian deaths, and whether all of them have been reported by the military. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- As a huge manhunt for two missing American servicemen widened throughout a dangerous region of eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, a Taliban spokesman said that one had been killed in an ambush and the other captured. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Kabul on Sunday that the military would ''do all we can'' to return the servicemen, who were in the Navy. The United States military in Afghanistan was offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to their return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Taliban militants captured two American service members who were driving a civilian vehicle in a particularly dangerous region of Logar Province south of Kabul on Friday, according to officials and local residents. The capture prompted a wide manhunt by the American military, including searches by military helicopters and radio broadcasts of a $20,000 reward for information leading to the Americans' return. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A seemingly routine training practice in marksmanship went fatally wrong on Tuesday when an Afghan Army sergeant turned his weapon on an American trainer and a gunfight began. When it was over, the sergeant, two American trainers and an Afghan soldier who had been standing nearby lay dead. The fight, which also wounded a NATO soldier, occurred near the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif at a training center for Afghan soldiers named Camp Shaheen, according to a statement from the NATO command and an Afghan defense official. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- American, European and other foreign leaders met here Tuesday to pledge anew their support for Afghanistan, agree to entrust it with more spending decisions, and embrace its president's commitment for Afghan forces to take charge of security by 2014. They acknowledged that neither the public in their own countries nor the Afghan people had much patience left. The transition timetable, which President Hamid Karzaioutlined last year, is nonbinding and essentially unenforceable, and much depends on how and when responsibilities will be transferred. The conference's final statement stopped short of any firm commitment to the timetable, instead expressing ''support for the president of Afghanistan's objective.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The United States and European nations attending an international conference here on Tuesday are expected to endorse President Hamid Karzai's plan for Afghan forces to take the lead on security throughout the country by 2014, according to Western officials and diplomats. The timeline, which Mr. Karzai outlined last year, is nonbinding and essentially unenforceable. But the war's Western backers hope that official affirmation at Tuesday's conference -- a gathering of more than 40 foreign ministers, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton -- may help ease pressure on European countries where political support for the war has plummeted and government officials are facing demands for a more clearly charted path to withdrawal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- After intensive negotiations with NATO military commanders, the Afghan government on Wednesday approved a program to establish local defense forces that American military officials hope will help remote areas of the country thwart attacks by Taliban insurgents. Details of the plan are sketchy, but Americans had been promoting the force as a crucial stopgap to combat rising violence here and frustration with the slow pace of training permanent professional security forces -- the bottom-line condition for the American military to begin pulling back from an increasingly unpopular war. Many parts of Afghanistan have no soldiers or police officers on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- An Afghan soldier killed three British soldiers in a premeditated attack in Helmand Province early Tuesday, and then escaped into the night, Afghan officials said. The attack in Babaji, near the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, is sure to further dampen backing for the war in Britain, where support has waned as casualties have risen sharply. In recent months, British forces have endured some of the toughest fighting of the nearly nine-year-old war in Helmand, a huge southern province of both desert and lush canal-fed agricultural land that is the country's opium heartland. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- With American commanders pushing to expand the number of armed village forces in areas where their troops and the local police are scarce, the Afghan president is signaling that he has serious concerns that such a program could return the country to warlordism, challenging the power of the central government. The village forces have been one of the top subjects under discussion in frenetic daily meetings for the past week between Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American military commander in Afghanistan, and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president. The two are scheduled to meet again on Tuesday, according to senior NATO military officials here. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Militants killed five American service members on Saturday in five separate attacks as casualties continued to mount in what has become, by far, the deadliest year since the 2001 invasion. Another American soldier died Saturday from what military officials described as an ''accidental explosion.'' Of those attacked, three were killed in eastern Afghanistan and two in southern Afghanistan, the regions where Taliban influence is strongest. Two of them died in roadside bomb explosions, two in small-arms attacks and one in an attack involving different types of weapons. ''All were separate incidents, and none of them had more than one casualty,'' said a spokesman for the American-led military command in Kabul, Lt. Col. Todd Vician. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- NATO pilots mistakenly attacked Afghan soldiers who had laid a trap for Taliban militants and killed at least five of the soldiers on Wednesday, a devastating case of friendly fire in a conflict still troubled by miscommunication among allied forces, Afghan officials said. The attack in the Andar district of Ghazni Province, about 100 miles southwest of Kabul, suggested a serious lack of coordination between NATO troops and Afghan forces battling militants who hold sway in part of the district known as Rahim Khiel. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Less than two weeks after his predecessor was abruptly fired for comments highlighting deep frictions among President Obama's war advisers, the incoming American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, used his first public appearance here on Saturday to underscore the need to ''achieve unity of effort and common purpose.'' General Petraeus, who arrived here Friday evening and is scheduled to assume command in Kabul on Sunday, used brief remarks during an appearance at the American Embassy to suggest that the war could never be a success without close relationships among American, NATO and Afghan leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Six militants armed with suicide bombs stormed the compound of an American contractor working for the United States Agency for International Development in the northern city of Kunduz on Friday, killing four security officers in an assault that left all the attackers dead, according to Afghan officials and the aid contractor. The security officers killed included one Briton, one German and two Afghans who worked for Edinburgh International, the firm guarding the Kunduz compound of D.A.I., a consulting company that contracts with the American development aid agency to help bolster governance, development and economic growth in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai has approved a plan intended to win over Taliban foot soldiers and low-level commanders, according to NATO officials and an aide to the Afghan official overseeing the effort at Taliban reintegration. Mr. Karzai's decision to sign the reintegration decree earlier this week followed months of debate and pressure from Afghan and NATO officials, as well as what one NATO official said was a recent phone call to Mr. Karzai from the incoming American military commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Up to one-third of Afghanistan's poppy harvest this spring has been destroyed by a mysterious disease, according to estimates revealed Wednesday by United Nations officials, potentially complicating the American and NATO military offensives this summer in the country's opium-producing heartland. The Taliban's public relations strategy against the offensives includes trying to convince local residents that Western troops will destroy their poppy crops, and in recent weeks Afghan farmers have started blaming the American and NATO militaries for spreading the disease, United Nations officials say. In many places, the blight has wiped out more than half of individual poppy fields. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Shootings of Afghan civilians by American and NATO convoys and at military checkpoints have spiked sharply this year, becoming the leading cause of combined civilian deaths and injuries at the hands of Western forces, American officials say. The steep rise in these convoy and checkpoint attacks -- which the military calls ''escalation of force incidents'' -- has prompted military commanders to issue new troop guidelines in recent weeks that include soliciting local Afghan village and tribal elders and other leaders for help preventing convoy and checkpoint shootings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Seven people were killed Sunday evening when a bus struck a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan, the latest casualties in Afghanistan's rising toll of civilian dead. As many as 14 other Afghans were wounded in the blast in Paktia Province. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The French military took responsibility on Friday for killing four Afghan children during a missile strike in early April, and NATO said it was investigating allegations of a military convoy gunning down two Afghan women and a girl in southeastern Afghanistan. The reports underscore concern over rising civilian deaths caused by the American-led military coalition as troops step up operations across the country. Last June, the new NATO and American commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, instituted guidelines credited with reducing civilian casualties caused by Western military forces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A NATO military convoy in eastern Afghanistan shot to death four unarmed civilians in a vehicle early Monday evening, including a police officer and a 12-year-old student, Afghan officials said Tuesday. The killings in Khost Province, near the border with Pakistan, led to a dispute almost immediately between local Afghan leaders and NATO officials. Deaths of civilians from shootings by NATO forces near convoys and at checkpoints have emerged as a particular flash point with the Afghan public and government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Late on Monday night, Azizullah Yarmal, Kandahar's deputy mayor, walked into a large mosque in his city and faced toward Mecca. He knelt down in unison with the others, leaning forward so his head touched the floor in ritual prayer. That was when gunmen, unseen by the bent-over worshipers, shot him to death. Killings of local notables have become a routine occurrence in Kandahar, but the slaying of Mr. Yarmal, perhaps the most admired public official in the violent city, shook people to the core. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- After months of pressure from Western leaders seeking to avoid another fraud-ridden election, President Hamid Karzai on Saturday chose a new head of Afghanistan's election commission, who received the immediate endorsement of the United Nations. In addition to supporting the new chairman, Fazel Ahmed Manawi, a former Supreme Court justice, the United Nations also endorsed a plan that would weaken a separate election-fraud monitoring body but would give Western representatives veto power over its decisions and would avert Mr. Karzai's attempt to take it over completely. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- American troops raked a large passenger bus with gunfire near Kandahar on Monday morning, killing and wounding civilians, and igniting angry anti-American demonstrations in a city where winning over Afghan support is pivotal to the war effort. The shooting, which killed as many as five civilians and wounded 18, occurred on the eve of the most important offensive of the war. In coming weeks thousands of American, NATO and Afghan troops are expected to try to take control of the Kandahar region, the spiritual home of the Taliban. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Under enormous pressure from Western governments, President Hamid Karzai ousted Afghanistan's top two elections officials, who were seen as sanctioning the widespread fraud that favored him during last year's presidential race. But Western diplomats said the significance of the move, which was announced on Wednesday, would not be known until replacements were named and could show whether they were less willing to condone fraud. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan officials investigating the deaths of five Afghan civilians gunned down in February during a bungled raid by American Special Operations forces believe that troops tampered with evidence at the scene, the lead investigator said Monday. NATO officials disclosed that they were looking into the allegations. Evidence tampering helps explain why NATO officials were so ''confused'' initially and offered inaccurate accounts of the killings, said the Afghan official, Merza Mohammed Yarmand, of the Ministry of Interior's criminal investigation division. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid. The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation -- and what falsehoods followed -- including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the true nature of their deaths. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- As President Hamid Karzai made more antagonistic statements over the weekend toward the NATO countries fighting on behalf of his government, the West was taking stock of just how little maneuvering room it has. There are no good options on the horizon, many analysts say, for reining in Mr. Karzai or for penalizing him, without potentially damaging Western interests. The reluctant conclusion of diplomats and Afghan analysts is that for now, they are stuck with him. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

MARJA, Afghanistan -- Since their offensive here in February, the Marines have flooded Marja with hundreds of thousands of dollars a week. The tactic aims to win over wary residents by paying them compensation for property damage or putting to work men who would otherwise look to the Taliban for support. The approach helped turn the tide of insurgency in Iraq. But in Marja, where the Taliban seem to know everything -- and most of the time it is impossible to even tell who they are -- they have already found ways to thwart the strategy in many places, including killing or beating some who take the Marines' money, or pocketing it themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan lawmakers dealt President Hamid Karzai a rare and potentially significant rebuke on Wednesday when the lower house of Parliament voted overwhelmingly to reverse his decision to take control of what had been the country's only independent election-fraud monitor. But the ultimate effect of the vote, while symbolically significant, was not clear to Western diplomats, who said they were uncertain if it would restore the autonomy of the watchdog, the Electoral Complaints Commission. They said, though, that the vote was the latest sign that Mr. Karzai was facing a more independent-minded Parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, according to military officials in Kabul. ''We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,'' said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has brought most American Special Operations forces under his direct control for the first time, out of concern over continued civilian casualties and disorganization among units in the field. ''What happens is, sometimes at cross-purposes, you got one hand doing one thing and one hand doing the other, both trying to do the right thing but working without a good outcome,'' General McChrystal said in an interview. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Iranian president visited Kabul on Wednesday and shot back at American allegations that Iran was providing support to Afghan insurgents, accusing the United States of playing its own ''double game.'' The visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came on the heels of a trip by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was still in Afghanistan on Wednesday even as Mr. Ahmadinejad predicted that American efforts here would fail. Later in the day, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan flew to Pakistan for a visit with the leadership there. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- As the United States and its Western allies renewed their commitment to the Afghan war in recent months, they stressed that it cannot be won without good government. They reiterated that stand in recent weeks as allied troops flooded the city of Marja, setting it up as a showcase for a new strategy of taking territory, then holding it through strong local leadership. But news reports that a newly chosen top leader for that city may have a criminal background underscore the difficulties of finding leaders who are both acceptable to Afghans and palatable to Western allies already concerned about the quality of the Afghans running the government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The thick brown sack that a man named Abdulmalek carried over his shoulder on a recent afternoon might have contained anything: weapons, drugs or explosives. But crossing back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan was no problem, he said. Afghan border guards never search him, even though he passes through this bustling crossing four or five times a week. ''What searching?'' said Mr. Abdulmalek, a 34-year-old clothing store owner who like many Afghans has only one name. ''There is no searching.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is by Richard A. Oppel Jr., Mark Mazzetti and Souad Mekhennet. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The suicide bomber who killed seven C.I.A. officers and a Jordanian spy last week was a double agent who was taken onto the base in Afghanistan because the Americans hoped he might be able to deliver top members of Al Qaeda's network, according to Western government officials. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For much of this country's history, the Hazara were typically servants, cleaners, porters and little else, a largely Shiite minority sidelined for generations, and in some instances massacred, by Pashtun rulers. But increasingly they are people like Mustafa, a teenager who has traveled a rough road but whose future now looks as bright as any in this war-ravaged country. His course reflects the collective effort of the Hazara, who make up 10 to 15 percent of the population, to remake their circumstances so swiftly that by some measures they are beginning to overtake other groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Secretive branches of the military's Special Operations forces have increased counterterrorism missions against some of the most lethal groups in Afghanistan and, because of their success, plan an even bigger expansion next year, according to American commanders. The commandos, from the Army's Delta Force and the Navy's classified Seals units, have had success weakening the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the strongest Taliban warrior in eastern Afghanistan, the officers said. Mr. Haqqani's group has used its bases in neighboring Pakistan to carry out deadly strikes in and around Kabul, the Afghan capital. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As widespread fraud in the Afghanistan presidential election was becoming clear three months ago, the No. 2 United Nations official in the country, the American Peter W. Galbraith, proposed enlisting the White House in a plan to replace the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, according to two senior United Nations officials. Mr. Karzai, the officials said, became incensed when he learned of the plan and was told it had been put forth by Mr. Galbraith, who had been installed in his position with the strong backing of Richard C. Holbrooke, the top American envoy to Afghanistan. Mr. Holbrooke had himself clashed with the Afghan president over the election. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Three journalists for the British newspaper The Guardian were released unharmed on Wednesday after being kidnapped last week by an armed gang in a rugged and remote part of eastern Afghanistan, the newspaper said. The journalists, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who is Iraqi, and two Afghan colleagues, had spent six days in cold and snowy conditions surviving on soup, tea and bread, the newspaper reported. It credited efforts by representatives and intermediaries in Afghanistan but did not release details, including the names of the two Afghans, to ''avoid compromising the security of those involved, particularly those remaining in Afghanistan.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A suicide car bomber struck outside a hotel popular with foreigners on Tuesday, killing at least 8 people and wounding 40 others, the Afghan authorities said. Four women were among the dead, according to the Interior Ministry. The explosion occurred just outside the hotel and several buildings owned by a former Afghan vice president, Ahmed Zia Massoud, who may have been the target. Mr. Massoud is the brother of the guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, who battled Soviet forces during the 1980s and was assassinated by a suicide bomber on Sept. 9, 2001, two days before the terrorist attacks against the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said Friday that he would leave when his contract expired early next year, as the organization was already looking for a replacement. Mr. Eide, a 60-year-old Norwegian diplomat who came under criticism for his handling of the fraud-ridden Afghan presidential election in August, said that he had never planned to renew his contract, which expires in March, and that his departure had nothing to do with the tumultuous aftermath of the national ballot. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]