Taliban Seeks Vengeance in Wake of WikiLeaks

After WikiLeaks published a trove of U.S. intelligence documents—some of which listed the names and villages of Afghans who had been secretly cooperating with the American military—it didn’t take long for the Taliban to react. A spokesman for the group quickly threatened to “punish” any Afghan listed as having “collaborated” with the U.S. and the Kabul authorities against the growing Taliban insurgency. In recent days, the Taliban has demonstrated how seriously those threats should be considered. More

Taliban Says It Will Target Names Exposed by WikiLeaks

Taliban Says It Will Target Names Exposed by WikiLeaks

The U.S. military has already accused WikiLeaks of having "the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family" on its hands after leaking 92,000 classified documents. The Taliban has now confirmed it is poring through the documents, and intends to hunt down and punish any suspected spies named. More

Pakistan Loses Control

Pakistan Loses Control

The Afghan Taliban’s three operational chiefs have gone deep underground, senior insurgent officials tell NEWSWEEK, and meetings of the leadership have been canceled until further notice. The three—former Taliban civil-aviation minister Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, former Taliban provincial governor Mullah Mohammad Hasan Rahmani, and military commander and former Guantánamo inmate Abdul Qayum Zakir—had operated with impunity from their rear bases inside Pakistan for years until the arrest near Karachi in February of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the group’s director of day-to-day actions at the time. More

Fazlullah, Widely Feared Mullah, Is Alive

The Pakistani military’s most impressive accomplishment in the past two years was its major offensive into the Swat Valley that succeeded in driving out Islamist militants who had established control over one of the country’s favorite tourist destinations. The military became confident that it had all but decapitated the valley’s radical leadership. Now there is doubt. More

In Islamabad, Clinton Unveils $500 Million Aid Package to Pakistan

In Islamabad, Clinton Unveils $500 Million Aid Package to Pakistan

Hillary Clinton announced more than $500 million in aid projects to Pakistan at a meeting Monday in Islamabad. The projects, meant to bolster Pakistan's infrastructure through agricultural improvements and construction of health facilities and dams, will be funded through the Enhanced Partnership With Pakistan Act (also known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill) that President Obama signed into law last October. The act allots $1.5 billion in nonmilitary aid to Pakistan annually. More

Karzai Consolidates Power

While the U.S. struggles to get its act together in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai, widely ridiculed as corrupt and ineffectual, is consolidating his power and moving toward a peace deal with the Taliban. More