The US Army’s second Security Force Assistance Brigade is slated to deploy to Afghanistan in an “advise and assist” mission as the fight against the Taliban shows no signs of ending from either side.

"The 2nd SFAB is a conventional unit with a special mission ready to answer the nation's call," US Army Brig. Gen. Donn Hill, who commands the unit, said Thursday in a prepared statement. In total, there are about 800 officers and noncommissioned officers in each security force assistance brigade, the Army Times reported last December. The deployment will start next spring, according to the Army.

The three top officials in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province were killed when their own guards opened fire on them at a security conference Thursday, the deputy provincial governor said, and a Taliban spokesman said the target was Washington’s top general in Afghanistan, Scott Miller, who escaped without injury, according to NATO.

Agha Lala Dastageri, Kandahar’s deputy provincial governor, said powerful provincial police chief Abdul Raziq was among the dead, along with Kandahar governor Zalmay Wesa, who died of his wounds at a nearby hospital.

Mr. Dastageri said provincial intelligence chief Abdul Mohmin also died inside the governor’s sprawling residence where the attack occurred.

Two US citizens were wounded and a local police chief killed when Afghan guards opened fire at Austin S. Miller, the NATO and US forces commander in Afghanistan, after his meeting with Kandahar officials in the city.

The attack took place on Thursday afternoon after Miller’s meeting with Kandahar’s governor and the provincial police chief, General Abdul Raziq.

Raziq was killed in the attack at the governor's office, while two US citizens and several top Afghan officials, including the governor, were wounded, Pajhwok Afghan News reported. General Miller was safely evacuated from the area after the incident, NATO said.

Taliban officials issued statements over the weekend confirming for the first time a new round of talks on the peace process with US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. The talks took place in Qatar, where the Taliban’s diplomatic offices are located.

The Taliban rarely admits to talks ongoing at all, but even more significantly, officials revealed that the discussions are centering on the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan after 17 years, and that the US has agreed to that as a topic of discussion.

Reports coming after a Friday meeting in Doha, Qatar, between US diplomats and top Afghan Taliban officials suggest that Washington has agreed to discuss bringing its troops home and end America’s 17-year war in Afghanistan.

During Friday's preliminary talks, US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad discussed with the Taliban conditions to bring about the end of the US's 17-year war in Afghanistan, according to two ranking Taliban officials speaking on condition of anonymity, as reported by Al Jazeera.

US Special Envoy on Afghanistan Meets With Taliban Officials in Doha – Report
"Six US delegates arrived in Doha to have a meeting with our [Taliban] leaders [and] agreed to discuss all issues, including the pullout of foreign troops," an unnamed Afghan Taliban official stated.

The only promise that is new about the promised peace plan is the way it will be forced on the Palestinians: no one has promised that the plan itself will be new. With Saudi Arabia and Egypt—the outside—brought onside with the promise of continued military aid despite their crimes against humanity and violations of international law and the Palestinians weakened by being silenced, economically crushed and stripped of any friends to help them, the United States and Israel are now free to attempt to impose a peace plan on the Palestinians.

Adding to a growing list of UN reports released recently all showing a surge in Afghan civilian casualties in different manners, a Wednesday report was released showing that civilian deaths are surging from US and Afghan government airstrikes.

This has been ongoing through the year, with a decrease in US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria leading to more warplanes committed to bombings in Afghanistan. More US strikes means more civilians getting hit, meaning the casualty figures are at multi-year highs.

The UN figures show 649 civilian casualties in the US and Afghan airstrikes in 2018’s first nine months. This is 39% more than the same period in 2017, as well as more than the whole of last year. 60% of the casualties are women and children.

All these reports on all these different sorts of civilian casualties caused by the war show a general increase in violence against civilians on all fronts, with no signs of the violence slowing down any time soon.

An American C-130 transport plane has crashed in Afghanistan, killing at least 11 people, a US defense official has said. Among the dead are several US troop members and contracted civilians whose nationalities have not been disclosed.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for shooting down the C-130, according to AFP. However, this information has not yet been confirmed, and US authorities previously denied any hostile engagement.

“Our mujahideen have shot down a four-engine US aircraft in Jalalabad,” AFP cited Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid as saying. “Based on credible information, 15 invading forces and a number of puppet troops were killed.”

Don't look for the Trump administration to pull out of Afghanistan any time soon.

In fact, expect just the opposite, as ill-advised as it is to continue pursuing a military solution to protect a US-installed corrupt government that is teetering on the brink of its own destruction.

The US has entered its 17th year in the Afghan war trying to prop up a government that is fundamentally flawed, corrupt to the core with a security force that still cannot defeat the Taliban on its own. In fact, corruption within the government has actually empowered the Taliban not only to stay the course but has increased its influence after it was all but defeated in 2001.

The UN said deliberately targeting and murdering civilians are serious violations of international humanitarian law that amount to war crimes. UNAMA has called for a peaceful settlement to the conflict.

Heavy fighting erupted in dozens of provinces across Afghanistan over the weekend, with reports over the weekend suggesting that these fights were heavily Taliban attacks timed to the 17-year anniversary of the US invasion.

Over 200 combatants were reported slain, with the Afghan Defense Ministry reporting 156 Taliban slain. Reports have 35 Afghan soldiers killed as of Saturday night, and 15 more killed overnight Sunday in Jawzjan.

The Defense Ministry has sought to rebrand all of that fighting after the fact, now saying that it was a series of “military crackdowns” as opposed to Taliban attacks. That the Afghan government lost territory, and the main highway is closed certainly raise questions about why they would’ve chosen these sites for “crackdowns.”

After 17 years of war in Afghanistan, a comfortable majority of American veterans say they would support a decision by President Donald Trump to pull all U.S. troops out of the country, according to a survey released Monday by a Washington think tank.

The joint poll from RealClearPolitics and the Charles Koch Institute, a libertarian-oriented research organization, found that more than half of Americans are skeptical of continued U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, an assessment that is even more common among veterans.

According to the survey, 53 percent of Americans do not believe Washington has a clear strategic objective in the Afghanistan War. About 60 percent of veterans feel the same way.

17 years ago, the United States began its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, officially launched to pursue al-Qaeda in general and Osama bin Laden in particular. Bin Laden is long since dead, but the US still has a massive war raging in Afghanistan, one which is going extremely poorly and shows no signs of ending.

On the war’s anniversary, fighting raged particularly hard, with 14 different provinces across Afghanistan reporting Taliban attacks, and many of them leading to substantial battles. All told, over 110 people were reported killed in 24 hours, roughly half of them Taliban, and the rest included 19 civilians and 35 Afghan soldiers.

Taliban attacks looked to secure territory gains in several districts, including strategically important districts along the Kabul-Kandahar highway.The main highway in Afghanistan, and one of the few major paved roads in the nation, officials say it is closed to traffic until fighting is resolved.

In his latest comments to reporters, US Central Commander Gen. Joseph Votel confirmed that the Afghan military and police and facing increasingly high numbers of battlefield casualties, following what he termed a “difficult and bloody summer.”

This has been well-documented in recent months, with the Afghan military losing ground significantly to the Taliban. The casualties are further exacerbating Afghan military shortfalls, caused by poor recruiting, and large numbers of “ghost troops” who exist only on paper.

Gen. Votel sought to downplay this to the reporters, however, saying Afghan officials have acknowledged the casualties but have said they “will not deter them.” Votel is also keen to see the Afghan military abandon attempts to defend territory and hold military checkpoints.

On September 3rd, a U.S Army sergeant major was killed by two Afghan police officers - the very people his unit, the new Security Force Assistance Brigade, was there to train. It was the second fatal “insider attack,” as such incidents are regularly called, this year and the 102nd since the start of the Afghan War 17 long years ago. Such attacks are sometimes termed “green-on-blue” incidents (in Army lingo, “green” forces are U.S. allies and “blue” forces Americans). For obvious reasons, they are highly destructive to the military mission of training and advising local military and security forces in Afghanistan. Such attacks, not surprisingly, sow distrust and fear, creating distance between Western troops and their supposed Afghan partners.

President Ghani says Afghan forces have enough potential and have managed to save the country from “collapse”.

In reaction to the possibility of privatizing the Afghan war, President Ashraf Ghani said he will not allow “foreign mercenaries” to operate in Afghanistan.

Addressing the 3rd Mayors National Conference, the president said the Afghan government forces have enough potential and have managed to save the country from “collapse”.

“You should know that the work which is done by Afghans cannot be done by any foreign mercenary and foreign mercenaries will never be allowed in this soil,” Ghani said.

Ghani’s remarks come days after Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater security company, in an interview with TOLOnews, insisted the Afghan war will end “a few months” using his plan to send in few thousand contracted mentors to Afghanistan.

The former founder and CEO of Blackwater says he needs just six months and roughly 3,600 men to make the Afghan War look far different from the shitshow it is now.

In an interview with Afghanistan’s TOLO News, Erik Prince once again pitched his idea to privatize the nearly-17-year-old conflict, offering up a force of “contracted veteran mentors” from the United States and NATO countries to serve alongside Afghan security forces.

“Well, I would say six months after the program is fully ramped up, you have a very different situation on the ground, I will commit to that,” Prince said, outlining a plan to provide 36 contractors for each unit of Afghan security forces, who would serve for two to four years at a time.

Yes, you read that right: Erik Prince says he can turn the war around in six months while suggesting his contractors could be there for at least four years.

Moscow is outraged at NATO’s "errant" attacks in Afghanistan, which have become almost a daily reality, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

"We are outraged at the fact that NATO’s ‘errant’ attacks in the country have become almost a daily reality, while no one has been held responsible," the statement reads.

"We believe that the current situation is a result of gross miscalculations the US made in Afghanistan and the White House’s reliance on the use of military force to resolve the situation in the country. We call on Washington to reconsider its short-sighted policy and opt for diplomatic measures aimed at launching an inter-Afghan dialogue," the Russian Foreign Ministry said, adding that Moscow called "for bringing those responsible for crimes against civilians to justice."

With the defeat of ISIS in most cities in Iraq and Syria reducing the number of potential targets for US airstrikes in those countries, planes have been relocated in large numbers to Afghanistan. It has been well-documented that this has led to a soaring number of US airstrikes in Afghanistan, with nearly 3,000 strikes in the first six months of this year, double that of the previous year.

With these strikes largely confined to areas where the US has little ground presence of intelligence on the area, the large increase in strikes led to an equally large increase in the number of civilians getting killed in airstrikes, with nine killed in Kapisa last week in the most recent example.

The UN issued a statement on Tuesday voicing concern about the increasing civilian deaths from airstrikes, reiterating that all parties have an obligation to protect civilians from harm. The US and Afghan governments both say they are “aware” of the statement.

The last official figures on Afghan military deaths came out in 2016. 22 soldiers were killed on an average day, and this was so bad that Afghan and US officials decided that death tolls would subsequently be kept secret

Things have just gotten worse, and 22 deaths would be a comparatively mild day compared to media reports on the death tolls in recent days. In the past week, the average day has seen roughly 57 deaths among Afghan security forces.

The Pentagon’s recent decision to more heavily publicize Taliban body counts, to try to sell the war to the administration, likely comes from the same place as the decision to keep Afghan military deaths secret, as this will just reveal the extent of the conflict’s failure.

The Pentagon’s leadership has long opposed using body counts as war propaganda, particularly in Afghanistan, fearing that it would echo the failed strategy of Vietnam, and alienating people around the world.

But in recent months, efforts to sell President Trump on the Afghan War have changed that, with officials now eager to get gaudy death tolls out to the public to prove that the US and its allies will “remove all who oppose them at every turn,” and are making progress in killing people.

Yet these same officials have long admitted this isn’t an effective way to communicate how the war is going, and that fixation on body counts comes off as terribly morbid. Whether it is something to sell President Trump on the war is another matter.

Countries with nothing to fear do not fear the ICC.

Countries with nothing to fear do not fear the ICC. The United States and Israel are very afraid of the ICC. The murder of unarmed civilians is a war crime. So is torture. Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of densely-populated civilian areas, its half-century occupation of Palestinian territory and its construction and expansion of Jews-only settler colonies on Palestinian land are all also illegal under international law. Neither Israel nor the United States has joined the ICC. Other leading human rights violators, including North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and Ethiopia, have either never joined or have withdrawn from the court.

The advisory also warns military activities linked to the bloody conflict in Syria have been ramped across Iran's airspace.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington are running high following Donald Trump’s controversial decision to pull out of the landmark Iran nuclear deal re-introduce economic sanctions last month.

Flight Service Bureau, which provides safety information on airspace to airlines, said "without seeming alarmist", the deteriorating relationship between the US and Iran must be taken into account when planning flights in Iran's airspace.

Most parliamentarians in the Afghani parliament voted to revise the country’s security agreement with the United States, including allowing permanent US military bases to remain on Afghan soil. This major development comes in light of Kabul, Beijing, Moscow, and the Taliban having attempting to organize a grand meeting to establish a solution to the US occupation in Afghanistan.

“The idea [of a revision] was put forward by some Parliamentarians in the Chamber of Deputies on Monday and was approved by the majority of the parliamentarians by means of a vote on Wednesday,” 1TV channel reported.

This agreement allowed US military forces and bases to remain in Afghanistan after the US combat mission ended in 2014, the report said. However, security conditions continue to worsen as the number of civilians and security forces killed by terrorist attacks increases.

Many Tesla owners have lost all autopilot functionality as a result of the company’s latest "over the air" software update, according to Jalopnik . Tesla knows about the issue and has promised to fix it by Friday of this week, according to the article, saying it was "a known issue".

Tesla has been sending out its latest "over the air" software update over the course of this week. The purpose of the software update was to increase the capabilities of Autopilot and help it further incorporate traffic lights, stop signs, lane changes and off-ramps.

As a reminder, numerous Tesla Autopilot incidents have occurred when a vehicle moves out from in front of a Tesla vehicle, and/or when there's an option to take an off-ramp nearby. Videos like this one, on YouTube, have confirmed the issue:

As Americans mark the anniversary of 9/11, the war that was launched in response to those attacks shows no sign of ending.

Seventeen years later, American troops are still fighting and dying, civilian casualties are at record highs, and the Taliban now controls more territory than at any point since 2001.

Earlier this month, a new American general took control of the effort — the ninth change of command in what is now the longest war the United States has ever fought.

Outgoing U.S. commander General John Nicholson had a simple message as he handed over reigns to his successor after being in command for the last two years: “It’s time for the war in Afghanistan to end.”

“Now the Taliban will pay a price” vowed President George W. Bush, as American and British fighter planes unleashed missile attacks against major cities in Afghanistan. The US Administration claims that Osama bin Laden is behind the tragic events of the 11th of September. A major war supposedly “against international terrorism” has been launched [October 2001], yet the evidence amply confirms that agencies of the US government have since the Cold War harbored the “Islamic Militant Network” as part of Washington’s foreign policy agenda. In a bitter irony, the US Air Force is targeting the training camps established in the 1980s by the CIA.

Donald Trump’s top national security adviser has launched a bellicose attack on the International Criminal Court, describing it as “fundamentally illegitimate” and “outright dangerous” in a speech that has alarmed human rights groups.

John Bolton threatened to prosecute judges from the International Criminal Court (ICC) or ban them from entering the United States if the organisation pursues an investigation into the conduct of American soldiers in Afghanistan.

“The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court,” Bolton said in a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, in Washington D.C on Monday US time.

China will train Afghan troops on Chinese soil, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Beijing said, describing the military cooperation as an effort to fight al Qaeda and Islamic State militants bent on attacking China from its western neighbour.

Afghanistan has also requested that China provide Afghan security forces with combat helicopters, Ambassador Janan Mosazai told Reuters in an interview.

Beijing last month dismissed reports that Chinese troops would be stationed in its war-torn neighbour, after it agreed to help Afghanistan set up a “mountain brigade” in the rugged Wakhan Corridor linking the two countries.

“But yes, there will be some training required, obviously, and that will take place in China,” Mosazai said in the interview on Tuesday.

Beijing will train Afghan troops on Chinese soil, Afghanistan’s ambassador to China said. The military cooperation will be part of an effort to fight Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militants bent on attacking China from its western neighbor, Ambassador Janan Mosazai told Reuters. Kabul has also requested that China provide Afghan security forces with combat helicopters.

A US service member in Afghanistan has been killed in an apparent insider attack, according to NATO. One other has been wounded.

The attack occurred in eastern Afghanistan, the NATO-led Resolute Support mission said in a statement.

The service member has not yet been identified. He is the sixth American to be killed in Afghanistan this year, according to Reuters.

Upon departing as commander of US Forces Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson recently said that America's military strategy, revised a year ago under the Trump administration, is working.

At the same time, Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater [currently known as Academi], apparently doesn't share that view and intends to renew his offer to his friend, President Donald Trump, to replace US military forces with Private Military Contractors, or PMCs.

Despite the differences, and any similarities, the military solutions for peace in Afghanistan offered by Nicholson and Prince are both delusional.

In saying that the latest US military strategy is working, Nicholson believes the current military solution is having the effect of "advancing us towards reconciliation" with the Afghan Taliban.

It may seem paradoxical that any American interest would seek to deliberately prolong the Afghan quagmire. Costing trillions of dollars to the national debt, one would think that US planners are anxious to wind down the war and cut their immense losses. Not so, it seems.

Like the classic 1960s satire film, Dr Strangelove, and how he came to “love the A-bomb”, there are present-day elements in the US military-security apparatus that seem to be just fine about being wedded to the mayhem in Afghanistan.

That war is officially the longest-ever war fought by US forces overseas, outlasting the Vietnam war (1964-75) by six years – and still counting.

After GW Bush launched the operation in October 2001, the war is now under the purview of its third consecutive president. What’s more, the 17-year campaign to date is unlikely to end for several more years to come, after President Donald Trump last year gave the Pentagon control over its conduct.

A surge in suicide bombings, brazen terror attacks on Kabul, and mass kidnappings in recent weeks in Afghanistan has indicated a significant and growing resurgence of both the Taliban and 'Islamic State' in the country after multiple failed attempts of the NATO-backed central government to strike ceasefire deals with the Taliban.

Most recently, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani survived what appeared to be an assassination attempt on August 21st, when a hail of shoulder-fired missiles landed near the presidential palace and in Kabul's 'green zone', interrupting his televised speech.

But it appears Afghan government forces and their US and NATO advisory partners are in the process of clamping down on the insurgency while delivering pay-back, as Reuters reports the head of Islamic State in Afghanistan has been killed in an airstrike on Saturday.

Rather than bringing ‘peace and stability’, training Afghans to a mythical self-sufficiency, or helping rebuild Afghanistan’s shattered infrastructure, the time is long past for an honest appraisal of what western Allied forces are really trying to achieve in Afghanistan. There are a number of motives that readily reveal themselves.

The first relates to Afghanistan’s geography. It is strategically located in close proximity to, or bordering upon, the United States’ designated enemies, China, Iran and Russia. A map of US military bases shows that they closely follow the pipeline route, and are readily accessible to the poppy fields that once again produce more than 90% of the world’s heroin.

With more than $700 billion spent (and at least $15.5 billion outright wasted) on America’s long war in Afghanistan, it’s easy to understand why President Donald Trump might pursue unusual options to finally bring the 17-year-old conflict to a close.

Allowing Erik Prince to take over the war effort should not be one of them.

Prince’s priorities in Afghanistan don’t seem to align with the Pentagon’s. Just consider his leaked Afghan war plan published by BuzzFeed News back in December 2017, in which he proposed plundering Helmand Province of approximately $1 trillion worth of lithium, uranium, phosphorus, and other rare elements.

Doing that would risk reversing whatever progress American troops have made in the region thus far by fueling the jihadi narrative that the U.S. government is a purely predatory, imperial force focused on enriching itself and weakening Muslim countries.

In but the latest sign that an attempted central government-sponsored ceasefire with the Taliban has failed, a massive missile attack which appears to have targeted the Afghan president and cabinet members occurred in the heart of Kabul's government and diplomatic district on Tuesday morning.

During an annual Eid speech to mark the Islamic holiday given by President Ashraf Ghani, a volley of 20 missiles was unleashed, which can be heard in the background during the televised address.

According to the account by Afghan national news agency Tolo, which first reported the assassination attempt:

Half way through his message, the thud of falling rockets could be heard in the background. Without flinching, Ghani interrupted his speech and said: “If they are thinking the rocket attack will keep Afghans down, they are wrong.”

On Sunday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced his intentions to offer a ceasefire to the Taliban for the Eid al-Adha holiday. Having pushed them for a response, the Taliban rejected the proposal Monday.

Analysts had previously predicted that while a public Taliban acceptance was unlikely, it wasn’t clear they’d actually reject the deal. Ghani officials demanded the Taliban publicly take a position on Monday, however, and that position was a “no.”

This means that the fighting will be continuing on both sides. One Taliban commander, asked to explain the decision, said that the leadership believes the ceasefire only benefits the US, and would prolong the US military presence in the country. The Taliban had repeatedly said no peace is possible while US troops remain.

Sometime late next year, possibly as early as September, news crews will gather in Afghanistan for a unique event: To interview an American serviceman or woman who was not born when the war they are fighting began. He or she will not remember 9/11, and will have grown up with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as background noise.

No doubt also a senior commander will be on hand to pronounce that the war against the Taliban is making progress, the same pronouncements the young recruit will have seen on TV all his or her life.

After 17 bloody years, the [second] longest war in US history continues without relent or purpose in Afghanistan.

There, a valiant, fiercely-independent people, the Pashtun (Pathan) mountain tribes, have battled the full might of the US Empire to a stalemate that has so far cost American taxpayers $4 trillion, and 2,371 dead and 20,320 wounded soldiers. No one knows how many Afghans have died. The number is kept secret.

For the second time this week, Taliban insurgents attacked and overran an Afghan Army base in the country’s north, this time in Baghlan Province. The offensive lasted about five hours, and left the Taliban in control of the military base and a nearby police checkpoint.

Starting before dawn, Taliban fighters quickly overwhelmed the police checkpoint, killing nine police, then moved on to the army base. They got to the base in Baghlan-e Markazi District and took that as well, killing another 36 troops.

Baghlan Governor Abdul Hai Nemati says that reinforcements have been sent to try to recapture the area. Checkpoints in the area were reportedly set on fire by the Taliban, however, so not everything can be recovered

ISIS has increased its efforts in order to expand its influence in Afghanistan. The local ISIS branch is believed to have about 3,000-5,000 members, including local Afghans, Pakistanis and Uzbeks.

According to available data, most of the terrorists are in the province of Nangarhar. However, cells of the terrorist group operate across the entire country.

Over the past few months, ISIS members have carried a series of terrorist attacks against government targets as well as engaged members of the Taliban in separate clashes and hit-and-run operations.

The ISIS expansion is fueled by fighters and field commanders, whom had fled Syria and Iraq where the terrorist group’s self-proclaimed caliphate was recently defeated. Another factor contributing to growth of the ISIS influence is a poor humanitarian, economic and social situation in the country.

The latest conflicting reports about whether or not the Taliban has taken the strategic city of Ghazni between the Afghan capital of Kabul and Kandahar reflect the dilemma and difficulties that the American forces face today.
The concerns come despite the firepower and technology that the US has applied against an insurgent force, which has taken over more than 50 percent of the country. This is despite America having almost completely driven out the Taliban when it first invaded Afghanistan in late 2001.

The battle for Ghazni and indeed the effort to defeat the Taliban in remote areas of the country suggest that, notwithstanding the intelligence, technology and communications capabilities at its disposal, the US is losing the battle to secure the country.

If the Taliban occupies Ghazni by defeating Afghan forces, it effectively would cut off southern Afghanistan from the Kabul government, which would represent a significant development.

The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) branch in Afghanistan has become a significant menace against the West despite the fall of the group’s caliphate in Iraq and Syria, a top American commander warned this week.

In June, Brig. Gen. Lance R. Bunch, the top U.S. air commander in Afghanistan, noted that the ISIS wing has attempted to “establish” its own “caliphate” twice this year alone in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar along the Pakistan border, considered the group’s primary stronghold in the region.

U.S.-NATO-assisted Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) have so far managed to thwart the ISIS attempt to establish a caliphate in Afghanistan, Gen. Bunch declared.

A US airstrike meant to hit Taliban forces in the Azra district of Afghanistan’s Logar province instead led to the deaths of at least nine Afghan security forces, local officials said Tuesday.

The aerial bombardment also wounded some 14 officers, according to AFP, who reported that the strike came after Afghan officials were engaged in an "hours-long battle with insurgents overnight."

The Afghan Ministry of Defense has confirmed that US Special Forces have been deployed to the western province of Farah near the Iranian border.

Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish said on Sunday that the deployment aimed to train Afghan troops on how to use new weapons, stressing that US Special Forces would not take part in combat operations.

He did not provide further details and it is yet not clear how many troops have been deployed to the province.

The deployment comes despite President Donald Trump's election campaign promises to end US military intervention in Afghanistan.

British Islamic State fighters have now moved into Afghanistan, the country's ambassador to the UK has revealed.

Said Jawad said the fanatics posed a threat not just to his country but to Britain, as they could sneak home and wreak havoc.

He said both countries' intelligence agencies were working to 'make sure they do not pose a threat if they go back to the UK', having tracked down fanatics with British passports.

The Pentagon is trying to convince the Afghan government to withdraw troops from sparsely populated districts, which is tantamount to abandoning vast swaths of land to the Taliban. What’s more, the White House is for the first time prepared to take a seat at the negotiating table across from the Taliban.

The New York Times notes that Trump’s new strategy is to a large extent building on the groundwork of his predecessors, George Bush and Barack Obama, who were planning to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan, handing over to the Taliban and other armed gangs those territories that were actually already under their control. The Americans are advising the Afghan authorities to focus their efforts on defending major population centers, with a natural priority on Kabul, Kandahar, Kunduz, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Jalalabad.

Afghanistan, long acknowledged to be America's "forgotten war", has finally returned to the news of late. But this time, in a shocking twist on the now 17-year long conflict, the US is negotiating with the Taliban.

Perhaps this is why the mainstream media has by and large not given this bombshell story the coverage it deserves? Or do the major networks feel the American public has long ago stopped paying attention and will therefore yawn at any headlines containing the words 'US Troops/Afghanistan'?

As Daniel McAdams explains, last week US State Department officials met with Taliban leaders in Qatar. At the request of the Taliban, the US-backed Afghan government was not invited. The officials discussed ceasefires and an end to the war.

Meanwhile, the US inspector general charged with monitoring US spending on Afghanistan reconstruction has reported that since 2008, the US has completely wasted at the least $15.5 billion. He believes that's just the tip of the iceberg, though.

President Trump has become the third president to renew a post-9/11 emergency proclamation, stretching what was supposed to be a temporary state of national emergency after the 2001 terror attacks into its 17th year.

But the ongoing effects of that perpetual emergency aren't immediately clear, because the executive branch has ignored a law requiring it to report to Congress every six months on how much the president has spent under those extraordinary powers, USA TODAY has found.

Exactly 16 years ago Thursday, President Bush signed Proclamation 7463, giving himself sweeping powers to mobilize the military in the days following terrorist attacks that crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. It allowed him to call up National Guard and Reserve troops, hire and fire military officers, and bypass limits on the numbers of generals that could serve.

For over a decade, the Taliban have refused to negotiate with the Afghan government, which they view as a puppet regime controlled by Washington. They have instead sought to speak directly with the United States, without Kabul’s mediation. In 2015, the United States sought to initiate peace talks with the Taliban in the Qatari capital Doha, but the effort collapsed after the Afghan government denounced it and demanded a seat at the table. The negotiation process has remained dormant since then.

Responding to requests from members of Congress, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has made his first attempt to calculate exactly how much money the US wasted in Afghanistan.

After 10 months of research, SIGAR said they could document $15.5 billion in waste since SIGAR’s inception in 2008. This is 29 percent of all of the spending audited by the SIGAR, who concedes the figure is probably low.

Current SIGAR John Sopko says that the figure is “likely only a portion of the total waste, fraud, abuse, and failed efforts.” He warned that the $4 billion in stabilization programs only “enabled corruption and bolstered support for insurgents.”

Taliban fighters have overrun two districts in the southeastern province of Paktika, on the border with Pakistan, officials said Tuesday as heavy fighting continued across Afghanistan.

Local officials said Taliban fighters began attacking security checkpoints and the centers of Omna and Gayan districts in Paktika on Sunday, forcing Afghan security forces in the area to pull out, leaving large quantities of weapons and equipment.

"After almost two days of heavy fighting, Taliban captured both district centers," provincial council member Fazel Rahman Katawazi said, adding that three members of the Afghan security forces were killed and a number of others injured.

The Taliban have taken a series of district centers this year, many of which have been subsequently retaken by Afghan security forces, which control areas with around two-thirds of the country's population.

Underscoring a policy change that’s been speculated for awhile, the Trump Administration has issued orders to US diplomats to seek direct talks with the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Trump had previously ruled out talks with the Taliban, but officials have recently suggested support for the Ghani government’s attempts to start talks.

This comes amid reports of the administration considering a full strategy review for the Afghan War, as nearly a year after President Trump’s announced escalation, things are still going poorly. With no real chances for a military victory, officials are hoping to try to get back to the negotiating table.

Gen. John Nicholson followed this report out of the White House with a statement of his own, saying he is “ready” for direct talks with the Taliban in an effort to end the 17-year-long war. He says the US must have a “key role” in the talks.

NATO’s summit has ended with a new declaration issued on the war in Afghanistan, some 17 years from the initial invasion. The declaration committed NATO troops to remain in the country for an indefinite amount of addition time.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says that the goal is “lasting peace and reconciliation,” and the declaration said NATO troops would remain in Afghanistan “until conditions change.” The declaration also committed to subsidize the Afghan military through at least 2024.

There is no timetable for conditions changing, and 17 years in the situation has if anything gotten progressively worse. Though the declaration made vague reference to “progress” on the ground, the Pentagon has made similar claims, and US officials have admitted that the lack of progress is likely to lead to another round of strategy reviews.

The Obama administration, citing “political concerns” in 2013, derailed a plan to prosecute Taliban drug kingpins in U.S. courts that could have curtailed unprecedented heroin operations in Afghanistan that fueled the deadly opioid crisis across the United States, a Politico investigation found.
Identified as Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents and U.S.

Department of Justice (DOJ) legal advisers at the time, the authors of the plan, code-named Operation Reciprocity, told Politico, “The real reason it was shut down was fears it would jeopardize the administration’s efforts to engage the Taliban in peace talks and still-secret prisoner swap negotiations involving U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.”

Last year, Bergdahl pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy after being exchanged by the Obama administration for five high-risk Taliban commanders in 2014, including at least some believed to have returned to terrorist activities.

Airdrops in Afghanistan grew nearly ten-fold this year, as supplies were increasingly ferried out via cargo aircraft and parachuted into Afghanistan to sustain operations against the Taliban this spring and summer.

More than 327,000 pounds of supplies were airdropped into Afghanistan by the end of May this year, with the bulk of those drops occurring in April and May, according to numbers provided by U.S. Air Forces Central Command’s Combined Air Operations Center.

That number stands in stark contrast to 2017, when the Air Force dropped only about 33,000 pounds of supplies into Afghanistan throughout the year, but still far short of the nearly 11 million pounds dropped closer to the height of the war in 2013.