War Glance
Federal investigators looking into corruption involving reconstruction in Iraq say they have opened more than 50 new cases in the past six months by scrutinizing large cash transactions made by some of the Americans involved in the nearly $150 billion rebuilding program.
Some of the cases involve people who are suspected of having mailed tens of thousands of dollars to themselves from Iraq, or stuffed the money into duffel bags and suitcases when leaving the country, the investigators said. In other cases, millions of dollars were moved through wire transfers. Suspects then used cash to buy BMWs, Humvees, expensive jewelry and plastic surgery, or to pay off enormous casino debts.
Some suspects also tried to conceal foreign bank accounts in Ghana, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain, the investigators said, while in other cases, cash was simply found stacked in home safes.
Hours before boarding a flight out of Kabul, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide delivered a final warning Saturday as he wrapped up his two-year tenure as the top United Nations diplomat in Afghanistan.
A new report from the New America Foundation states that one of every three people killed in the U.S.’s not-so-secret drone war in Pakistan is a civilian. The report also discloses that none of the strikes in 2009 targeted Bin Laden, and that they have had little impact on the Taliban’s ability to plan operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"I wish it was like it was before, when I could go out with my friends and feel safe." "Before" was the 1990s — the era of Saddam Hussein, a time that many remember as almost idyllic in its safety. Unless their own families were victims of Saddam's terror, the years between 1991 and 2003 held almost no threats. Young women could go out to visit their friends in the evening, families dined at outdoor restaurants until after midnight, parks were full, and life seemed less precarious
Six years after the intense fighting began in the Iraqi town of Fallujah between US forces and Sunni insurgents, there is a disturbingly large number of cases of birth defects in the town. Fallujah is less than 40 miles (65km) from Baghdad, but it can still be dangerous to get to.
The Pentagon confirmed late Tuesday that it is investigating the death of a 24-year-old Indiana Marine after he was shot to death in Afghanistan, allegedly by several US-paid private security contractors.
Even as U.S. forces take steps to reduce the number of Afghan civilians killed by aerial attacks, other civilian casualties remain stubbornly high — deaths in so-called escalation of force incidents in which edgy American troops fire on civilians who've come too close to their convoys or roadblocks.
