American Troops

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. and Iraqi troops aided by warplanes and unmanned drones fanned out in a Baghdad neighborhood yesterday in search of an American soldier believed to have been abducted the previous evening. The troops shut off roads and bridges, erected checkpoints, searched cars and went from house to house in the Karada neighborhood, U.S. military officials said. "It's pretty intense," said Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, a military spokesman. "Forces throughout Baghdad are working on it."

- When President Barack Obama went to Fort Bragg the other day to proclaim the end of the nearly nine-year war in Iraq, it was hardly what you would call a traditional victory lap. There was no wild V-I Day to match the V-E and V-J Days that kicked off nationwide jubilation at the end of World War II. The most Mr. Obama could proclaim was that America wished a "welcome home" to the last of the 1.5 million American troops who had served in...

ASADABAD, Afghanistan - After months of frustration, U.S. commanders appear to have concluded that Osama bin Laden is probably alive and moving between mountain hideouts somewhere on a 250-mile stretch of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The hunt for bin Laden and his associates, including his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has proved to be as murky as the silted rivers flowing through these inhospitable mountains. Nearly a year after Sept. 11, and nearly nine months after bin Laden's associates delivered their last videotape of him discussing the attacks in New York and Washington, hard facts about the quest for the top al-Qaida leaders are elusive.

Washington -- ON MY RECENT trip to the Middle East and Europe, nobody -- not one person -- asked me about the United States or the Clinton administration. New York Times columnist Flora Lewis found the same "bewildering" phenomenon in January at the World Economic Forum meeting in Switzerland.And this week, dramatized for the whole world to see, we can see why we are increasingly becoming, in Henry Kissinger's word, "irrelevant" as we move beyond the end of the Cold War toward the turn of the century.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- American-led forces battled gunmen in Sadr City during two rare forays into the vast Shiite Muslim slum yesterday, killing at least 10 people and drawing a swift rebuke from Iraq's prime minister. The American troops, who called in airstrikes as they came under attack, were searching for a kidnapped U.S. soldier and hunting for a Shiite death squad leader, authorities said. The U.S. military said in a statement that the raid had been authorized by the Iraqi government.

The more I read about Afghanistan, the more concerned I become about the contending factions faced by President Hamid Karzai's government and the American forces trying to support it. We have spent $471 million to complete the Afghanistan Dam project, begun in the early 1950s to provide electricity, and the $6 billion we have spent over the past decade to combat the opium trade has helped finance the insurgency and fueled government corruption....

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Five American troops died during fighting in Anbar province, the U.S. military said yesterday, bringing to at least 96 the number killed this month - the bloodiest since October 2005. Meanwhile, American troops in the capital continued searching for a comrade believed to have been kidnapped earlier in the week. Elsewhere, gunmen attacked Iraqi security forces north of the capital in Baqouba and outlying villages yesterday in what appeared to have been a coordinated strike against police positions.

FALLUJAH, Iraq - They arrived a few days ago to impose law and order in this city of heat, dust and defiance, 35 miles west of Baghdad. But from the first night they patrolled the streets, American troops were under attack. Members of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division found more than a crime wave. When their patrols began last week, the soldiers found themselves to be targets in a guerrilla war. During their first weekend here, American troops were attacked in two ambushes involving perhaps a half-dozen gunmen.

The spectacle of Somali rioters demonstrating outside the U.S. Embassy compound in Mogadishu and demanding that Americans go home is poor reward for a humanitarian operation that is a credit to this nation. Poor payment yes, but surprise no.Whenever the United States intervenes overseas, particularly in Third World countries it understands but dimly, this is a risk, regardless of Washington's motivation. It is a risk that will be passed along, more and more, to the United Nations as that organization is pushed to come to grips with the new world (dis)

American troops are going to be in Iraq at some strength through the end of the year. Most Americans may not want to hear that, but the men in charge of the war, now in its sixth year, aren't ready to leave the Iraqis to their own miserable devices. Gen. David Petraeus, the chief commander in Iraq, couldn't say it any plainer in his appearance before a congressional committee yesterday - Iraqi forces aren't yet ready to defend themselves on their own, and any progress made so far would be undone if a U.S. withdrawal began in earnest in July.