US operations to push back Taliban forces around Kandahar have "already begun" and will steadily build in coming months, the commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan said Wednesday. General Stanley McChrystal told reporters that the US-led offensive on the Taliban's spiritual heartland had started with initial military and political efforts, including operations designed to secure key roads ...

UNICEF said Wednesday it feared the intensification of fighting in Afghanistan under the new anti-Taliban strategy could drive more families to send their children to work illegally in Europe. "We are fearful that we may see an additional increase in the number of children who are seeking to go out of the country," Daniel Toole, South Asia regional director ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Preliminary U.S. efforts to gradually retake full control of the Taliban's birthplace Kandahar are already underway, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan said on Wednesday, offering few details. The campaign in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, is seen as a crucial test of President Barack Obama's strategy to reverse Taliban momentum after ...

Two suicide attackers dressed in burqas were killed in a gunfight outside the offices of a US aid group in Afghanistan on Wednesday near the site of a major US-led military operation. Three people, including two foreigners, were wounded in the shoot-out with guards at the International Relief and Development (IRD) compound in Lashkar Gah, capital of volatile Helmand province ...