Hamid Karzai

Reading The Sun's pious outrage at U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters reminded me of Nietzsche's remarks on decadent religions - cultures so wrapped up in the make-belief worlds of the afterlife that they've come to devalue life in this world ("Despicable and destructive," Jan. 13). But instead of hand-wringing about the sacredness of dead bodies, how about harnessing the new-found appreciation of humanity among the Taliban and Afghan President Hamid Karzai to draw attention to the barbaric and inhumane practices that are accepted as the cultural standard in their region?

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage made a short stop in Afghanistan yesterday on his way between Pakistan and India, to bear a personal message from the White House that the United States would not forget Afghanistan. "President Bush has asked me to come to Afghanistan to dramatically make the point that the United States, although we may at present be occupied by Iraq, is not going to forget our responsibilities in Afghanistan," Armitage said at a brief news conference yesterday.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Suspected Taliban fighters killed at least seven people and wounded two in a bold attack early yesterday on a government district office in the southern Afghan province of Zabul, local security officials said. An American soldier was wounded in a separate attack yesterday when gunmen opened fire on a Special Forces unit training the Afghan National Army on a firing range on the edge of Kabul, the capital. NATO peacekeepers in Kabul captured a man suspected of being one of the three gunmen, said a spokesman for the U.S. military at Bagram Air Base.

Afghan forces kill Taliban commander once a U.S. prisoner KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A former inmate at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who returned to Afghanistan to rejoin the Taliban as a key commander, was killed along with two fellow fighters in a raid by Afghan security forces, senior officials said yesterday. The Taliban commander, Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, died along with two comrades in a gunbattle Saturday night in Uruzgan, a southern province, said Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- NATO forces said yesterday that they were investigating reports that 25 Afghan civilians were killed in overnight airstrikes in southern Afghanistan. The mounting civilian casualty toll in Afghanistan is eroding public support for the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai. After the report of the latest deaths, Karzai told the BBC that accidental killings and injuries of civilians at the hands of coalition forces are "difficult for us to accept or understand."

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Somber, impatient and angry, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan accused the U.S. military and its NATO allies yesterday of carrying out "careless operations" that led to civilian casualties, asserting that "Afghan life is not cheap and should not be treated as such." His remarks, made on the front lawn of the presidential palace, came in response to a week in which more than 100 civilian deaths have been reported from airstrikes and artillery fire against the Taliban.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide car bomber struck near a U.S. military base yesterday, killing at least two people, and a U.S. soldier was reported killed in fighting with insurgents in southern Afghanistan. A car accident apparently prevented the suicide bomber from reaching his intended target, believed to be a store frequented by foreigners on the outskirts of Kabul, said Yousuf Stanizai, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry. The target also might have been U.S. or NATO forces that have bases on the same road, Stanizai said.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber and gunmen attacked a drug-eradication team in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than 40, authorities said. Twelve police officers were among the dead in the assault, the latest in a string of attacks by militants against government teams responsible for destroying the lucrative opium poppy crop during the planting season. The insurgency is fueled with profits from the drug trade. The seven other people killed were civilians, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

There has been widespread fury in Afghanistan and parts of neighboring Pakistan over the burning of the Quran at the Bagram Air Base. Several U.S. and NATO servicemen have been killed by angry Afghans, and violent demonstrations continue days after the incident despite the swift and sincere apologies issued by President Barack Obama and the chief of army operations in Afghanistan. The "inadvertent" burning of old Qurans was an inexcusable blunder on our part and shows how culturally insensitive our troops and advisers are, despite our presence in Afghanistan and Iraq for over a decade.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's leader, Hamid Karzai, presided over ceremonies here 2 1/2 years ago marking the first time girls could attend classes after the fall of the Taliban. As children marched into the gym, Karzai was visibly moved. He swallowed hard. Tears welled in his eyes. It was a rare public show of tenderness by a chief of state - and it illustrates what may be Karzai's biggest problem as he seeks to become Afghanistan's first elected president in Saturday's election.