Criminal investigators are examining allegations that Afghan security firms have been extorting as much as $4 million a week from contractors paid with U.S. tax dollars and then funneling the spoils to warlords and the Taliban. If the allegations are true, the U.S. would be unintentionally financing the enemy and undermining international efforts to stabilize [...]

The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan [...]

As 2010 begins in turmoil, 10 questions to ask about U.S. military presence in distant lands. Let’s peer into the future, and consider just what the American way of war might have in store for us in 2010. Here are 10 questions, the answers to which might offer reasonable hints as to just how much [...]

At a joint press conference Tuesday at the presidential palace in Kabul, Hamid Karzai surprised the usually unflappable Gates when he knocked down President Obama’s attempt to get out of Dodge. Needling his American sugar daddy, the Afghan peacock observed: “For another 15 to 20 years, Afghanistan will not be able to sustain a force [...]

In any event, the ICC‘s very existence is already changing the way Western nations fights wars. Mr. Ocampo recounted how a legal adviser to NATO told him that troops these days are trained to realize that, in case of transgressions, they could be arrested and brought to the ICC on war crimes charges with the help of evidence [...]

For eight years, Republican and Democratic administrations have said the Taliban controls narcotic trafficking in Afghanistan. In fact, according to both the CIA and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, the insurgents control about 2-3 percent of the total. [...] The Taliban do tax poppy farmers and extort protection money from smugglers passing through [...]

Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahedeen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort. In this grotesque carnival, the US military’s contractors are forced [...]

Nearly all of the insurgents battling US and NATO troops in Afghanistan are not religiously motivated Taliban and Al Qaeda warriors, but a new generation of tribal fighters vying for control of territory, mineral wealth, and smuggling routes, according to summaries of new US intelligence reports. Some of the major insurgent groups, including one responsible [...]