Fighters loyal to Islamic State have seized substantial territory in Afghanistan for the first time, witnesses and officials said, wresting areas in the east from rival Taliban insurgents in a new threat to stability.
A Taliban suicide bomber and six gunmen attacked the Afghan parliament on Monday as lawmakers met to consider a new defense minister, and another district in the volatile north fell to the militants as they intensified a summer offensive.
Osama bin Laden was fixated on attacking U.S. targets and pressured al Qaeda groups to heal local rivalries and focus on that cause, according to documents the United States says were seized in his hideout in Pakistan and released on Wednesday.
A suicide car bomber rammed a European Union vehicle near the main airport in Afghanistan's capital on Sunday, killing two Afghan civilians and a British security contractor in the latest attack in the city, officials said.
The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility on Thursday for an attack on a popular guesthouse in Kabul that killed at least 14 people, including foreigners attending a dinner and arriving for a concert.
A Pakistan military helicopter taking diplomats to inspect development projects crashed on Friday killing seven people, including the ambassadors of Norway and the Philippines and the wives of the Malaysian and Indonesian ambassadors, the army said.
Taliban representatives met with Afghan political figures for a second day in Qatar on Sunday, and one participant said the two sides discussed a possible ceasefire but ultimately disagreed over the continued presence of U.S. troops in the country.
An Afghan delegation is heading to Qatar for "open discussions" with representatives of Taliban insurgents over the next few days aimed at ending Afghanistan's long war, an official said on Friday.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani called on Tuesday for regional cooperation to defeat violent extremist groups, saying after meeting the Indian prime minister that he wants to "make Afghanistan a graveyard of terror" but needs help from India, Pakistan and other neighbors.
The killing of an American who directed al Qaeda's media campaign from his Pakistani hideout is likely to be a big blow for the militants, especially as they wage a propaganda war with Islamic State.
U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a former Taliban prisoner in Afghanistan, was formally charged on Wednesday with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of the most serious count, the Army said.
Even by Afghanistan's standards of often-shifting alliances, a recent meeting between ethnic Hazara elders and local commanders of the Taliban insurgents who have persecuted them for years was extraordinary.
Pakistan authorities have arrested hundreds of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children against polio, officials said Tuesday, as community opposition and Taliban threats block efforts to eradicate the crippling disease in one of its last strongholds.
China's President Xi Jinping will visit Pakistan this year in what will be the first trip by a Chinese head of state to its western neighbor in nine years, as Beijing looks to take a bigger role in South Asia.
High-profile attacks such as the abduction 300 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in Nigeria and the shooting of Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan are a fraction of what is suffered by girls trying to get an education, the U.N. human rights office said on Monday.
The U.S. Army on Tuesday denied that a decision had been made to bring desertion charges against Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who was released last year in a controversial prisoner swap after disappearing from his base in Afghanistan in 2009.
The United States on Tuesday declared Pakistani Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah a "global terrorist," making it a crime to engage in transactions with the man behind the Dec. 16 attack in which 134 children at a Peshawar school were killed.
For years, the radical imam Abu Hamza al-Masri delivered incendiary sermons at a London mosque, using words that U.S. and UK authorities say helped inspire a generation of militants, including British would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid.
No one ever claimed responsibility after a suicide bomber rammed into the vehicle of celebrated female parliamentarian Shukria Barakzai. She walked away from the wreckage after the Nov. 16 blast that killed three civilians and wounded 20.
One week before the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan draws to a close, President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, thanked American troops on Thursday during a Christmas Day visit to Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kanoehe Bay.
Pakistan hanged four Islamist militants on Sunday in the second set of executions since the government lifted a moratorium after the Taliban massacred 132 children and nine others at a school last week.
