RECONCILING AFGHANISTAN: President Barack Obama declared that the United States is not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the U.S. military would reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq. ...more

March 8, 2009

By the time Mohamed Abdi Ibrahim decided to leave Somalia, life in the southern city of Kismaayo had become, as he put it with consummate understatement, "complicated." ...more

December 29, 2008

Taking a page from the successful experiment in Iraq, American commanders and Afghan leaders are preparing to arm local militias to help in the fight against a resurgent Taliban. Along with hope, however, the move is raising fears here that the new armed groups could push the country into a deeper bloodletting. ...more

December 24, 2008

Afghan tribes are needed as crucial battlefield allies against the Taliban and other extremists in the same way local militias rose up to oppose insurgents in Iraq, the new military overseer of America's two wars said Thursday. ...more

November 7, 2008

Iraq expects Washington's reply on proposed changes to a draft security agreement after the U.S. elections, an aide to the prime minister said Sunday. ...more

November 2, 2008

Iraq's drive to forge ties with Sunni-led Arab neighbors, who it says have shunned its Shiite Muslim leadership, got a boost Monday when Jordan's King Abdullah II became the first leader of an Arab nation to visit since the fall of Saddam Hussein. ...more

August 12, 2008

Darfur rebels from western Sudan took their five-year struggle to the doorstep of their country's capital Saturday, engaging government forces in gunbattles on the outskirts of Khartoum. ...more

May 11, 2008

It is a central argument of the Bush administration that the outcome in Iraq is essential to the broader war on terror - which is plainly true. ...more

May 5, 2008

The ugly, daily fight for ground in the poor Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City unfolded Saturday at a small mosque next door to a hospital, damaging the hospital and all its ambulances, and near a group of children who were injured as they gathered tin cans to sell for salvage. ...more

May 4, 2008

Rockets or mortars hit the U.S.-protected Green Zone early Saturday, just a day after powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army militia to extend its cease-fire by another six months. ...more

February 24, 2008