By Kevin Sieff KABUL —Afghan commanders have refused more than a dozen times within the past two months to act on U.S. intelligence regarding high-level insurgents, arguing that night-time operations to target the men would result in civilian casualties, Afghan officials say. The defiance highlights the shift underway in Afghanistan as Afghan commanders make use of their newfound power to veto operations pr ...

By Rama Lakshmi India’s intelligence agency sparked outrage in Pakistan and self-deprecatory jokes at home this week after it listed ordinary Pakistani shopkeepers as terrorists on a mission to attack some of India’s landmark institutions. The Research and Analysis Wing, India’s premier intelligence agency, issued an advisory to state governments in which it said that five trained militants from Pakistan’s ...

Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of monographs on the geopolitics of countries influential in world affairs. The founding principle of geopolitics is that place -- geography -- plays a significant role in determining how nations will behave. If that theory is true, then there ought to be a deep continuity in a nation's foreign policy. Israel is a laboratory for this theory, since it has existed ...

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Thursday that U.S. officials were doing everything possible to win the release of a U.S. soldier held captive by Afghan insurgents, a day after his parents went public with complaints about government inaction. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was captured in eastern Afghanistan in 2009 and is believed to be held by the militant Haqqani network somewhere in the tribal areas of ...

By Simon Denyer NEW DELHI — There are few places in the world where the opportunity for solar power is more blindingly obvious than India. There are also few industries where the possibility of collaboration between India and the United States is more tantalizing. But although India’s solar industry is finally taking off, enormous hurdles must be overcome before it can make a meaningful contribution to the ...

Did he quit in anger? Was he forced out? Or did the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan just want to spend more time with his family? The speculation about the resignation of Ambassador Cameron Munter after less that two years on the job has been gripping diplomats and journalists in Islamabad since he quietly told his embassy staff of his decision Monday. Unnamed diplomatic sources whispered to reporters that Mr. ...

By Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung The United States launched airstrikes in Yemen on Thursday that killed as many as seven militants, the second American missile attack in the country since the CIA and other spy agencies disrupted an al-Qaeda airline bomb plot, U.S. officials said. The strike came as new details surfaced about the foiling of the plot, including the disclosure that the operative who posed as a ...

Pakistan's PM denies authorities knew Osama bin Laden was living in country Global 'intelligence failure' to blame for al-Qaida leader going undetected for so long, says Yousaf Raza Gilani Pakistan's prime minister has insisted his country had not been "complicit" in sheltering Osama bin Laden and said the fact the late al-Qaida leader was able to live undetected for so long in Pakistan was down to a univer ...