02/06/12: The Washington Post reports that with war fatigue growing and an election looming, the Obama administration has bumpily embarked on its endgame in Afghanistan. In recent weeks, closed-door strategizing over Taliban peace talks, the pace of NATO’s combat handover and withdrawal, and the future of US relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan have suddenly become part of the public and political debate. But revelations about plans already in motion have emerged sooner than the administration has been prepared to explain them, complicating efforts to turn them into a coherent whole and build support.
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02/04/12: The Miami Herald reports that the Army on Friday dropped all charges against the fifth soldier it had accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport during a 2010 deployment. Specialist Michael Wagnon, 31, of Las Vegas, had been charged with the unlawful killing of one Afghan civilian in February 2010. He was expected to go on trial in March. In a statement, Joint Base Lewis-McChord said the charges were dismissed "in the interest of justice." According to Wagnon's attorney, preparations for the impending trial "just kept developing the evidence of Michael's innocence until it just became overwhelming."
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02/02/12: Reuters reports that US lawmakers are steeling for a public battle against the possible transfer of Taliban detainees out of Guantanamo Bay prison, a key step in the Obama administration's bid to broker a peace deal ending the war in Afghanistan. Congressional opposition is gaining steam, especially among Republicans but also among some senior Democrats, to the potential transfer to Qatar of five senior Taliban prisoners, a good-faith move that could set the stage for eventual political talks between the Taliban and Afghan government.
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01/30/12: CNN reports that the Afghan government plans to hold talks with Taliban representatives in Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks, in a move that threatens to cloud already delicate and fragile steps to negotiate an end to the United States' longest war. An anonymous senior official said the plans were at such an early stage that it was not clear who -- including American officials -- would attend or when any talks would be held. The US has acknowledged that it has held discussions about opening a Taliban office in Doha, Qatar, as well as the possibility of transferring some Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay as part of American support for Afghan reconciliation efforts.
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01/30/12: The Miami Herald reports that Pakistan's former ambassador to the US said Monday that a travel ban imposed on him during the investigation of a controversial memo sent to Washington has been lifted. The decision suggests that a scandal that at one point looked as though it could lead to the downfall of Pakistan's government may be losing steam. Husain Haqqani said in a statement that the court commission investigating what the Pakistani media calls "memogate" removed the ban. The commission could not immediately be reached for comment.
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01/28/12: The Boston Globe reports that France and Afghanistan agree NATO should speed up by a year its timetable for handing all combat operations to Afghan forces in 2013, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday, raising new questions about the unity of the Western military alliance. Sarkozy also announced a faster-track exit for France, the fourth-largest contributor of troops in Afghanistan -- marking a distinct break from previous plans to adhere to the US goal of withdrawing combat forces by the end of 2014.
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01/23/12: The Washington Times reports that Pakistan's army on Monday formally rejected a US claim that American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani troops last year were justified as self-defense, a stance that could complicate efforts to repair the troubled but vital relationship between the two countries. In a detailed report, the army said that Pakistani troops did not trigger the November 26 incident at two posts along the Afghan border by firing at American and Afghan forces, as the US has alleged. Pakistan's army said its troops shot at suspected militants who were nowhere near coalition troops.
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01/15/12: The Denver Post reports that initially there were concerns that outrage over the video showing Marines desecrating the bodies of three men would spiral into a scandal like the one in 2004 over photos showing a group of US military police abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison. But Afghan officials said the quick responses by all sides had helped contain the damage. "As all three sides — the US, the Afghan government and the Taliban — have all condemned this act, I'm hopeful that this will not have any effect on the peace process," a member of the peace council and the Taliban's former envoy to the UN said Saturday. The Taliban agreed.
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01/03/12: The Washington Post reports that at the urging of the Afghan Taliban, four major Pakistani insurgent factions have joined the Afghan guerrilla group known as the Haqqani network in a council aimed at resolving infighting and ending militant violence against civilians in Pakistan. The Shura-i-Muraqba said it had formed in consultation with the Afghan Taliban and called on “all holy warriors” to avoid criminal activities or face punishment under Islamic law.
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12/23/11: The Boston Globe reports that Afghanistan's leading human rights activist said Friday that President Hamid Karzai has fired him and two others from the government's own rights commission. The claim came as the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission was working on a landmark report about abuses in the country. The United States and the European Union are worried that such violations, along with widespread corruption, are undermining their efforts to stabilize the nation and defeat the stubborn Taliban insurgency -- threatening their goal of crafting a strong central government to take over when NATO leaves.
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12/12/11: ABC News reports that the US Special Operations commander who directed the operation that killed Osama bin Laden defended the unpopular night raids on homes in Afghanistan that have provoked the fury of the country's president and held up a security agreement with the United States. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for an end to the raids, in which troops borne in by helicopter search homes, because he says the forces conducting them treat too many civilians as if they were insurgents and violate privacy in an intensely conservative society. McRaven said in a rare interview with journalists late Saturday that the U.S. understands Afghan concerns about night raids and has allowed its partner Afghan forces to take the lead in those and other operations.
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12/05/11: The New York Times reports that as dozens of nations and organizations met on Monday to plan a transition beyond the withdrawal of American and other international forces from Afghanistan in 2014, the Afghan government had a new deadline in mind: 2024. President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan officials called for political and military support for at least another decade — and for financial assistance until 2030. That would be nearly three decades after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that led to the international intervention in Afghanistan.
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