HAMID KARZAI

The Air Force has concluded that air crew members acted appropriately and were not at fault for some tragic deaths during the chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan last year, when desperate Afghans clung to a military plane as it was taking off and fell to their deaths or were caught in the wheels.

Some Afghans who were evacuated from their country as it fell to the Taliban last summer have found their journey to the United States stalled at a cluster of tents and temporary housing at a military base in the Balkans.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers are working to protect ancient Buddha statues in caves carved into cliffsides outside Kabul.

When Associated Press journalist and Marine Corps veteran James LaPorta agreed to advise the NBC-TV show “This Is Us” about depicting the military authentically, he found more than he'd bargained for.

Afghanistan’s former president has called a White House order to unfreeze $3.5 billion in Afghan assets held in the U.S. for families of 9/11 victims an atrocity against the Afghan people.

Afghanistan's former president says he had just minutes to decide to flee in the hours before the Taliban took control of the capital in August.

For Afghanistan, 2021 was punctuated by the chaos of a U.S. withdrawal and an uncertain next chapter.

U.S. President Joe Biden has told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that their countries must cooperate more and better manage disagreements after their partnership was tested by Turkey's threat to no longer recognize the American envoy and its purchase of a Russian missile defense system.

A child of working-class Jamaican immigrants in the Bronx, Colin Powell rose from neighborhood store clerk to warehouse floor-mopper to the highest echelons of the U.S. government.

Russia's foreign minister says the United States, China, Russia and Pakistan are working together to ensure that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers keep their promises, especially to form a genuinely representative government and prevent the spread of extremist groups.

Taliban special forces in camouflage fired their weapons into the air, bringing an abrupt and frightening end to the latest protest march in the capital by Afghan women demanding equal rights from the new rulers.

Addressing the nation, President Joe Biden is defending the way the U.S. ended its 20-year “forever war” in Afghanistan.

The Taliban are reveling in their victory after the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, while reiterating their pledge to bring peace and security to the country after decades of war.

After two decades, the United States has completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war and closing a sad chapter in military history.

Until last week, journalist Shabeer Ahmadi was busy covering the news in Afghanistan.

The United States military has struck back at the Islamic State, bombing an IS member in Afghanistan less than 48 hours after a devastating suicide bombing claimed by the group killed as many as 169 Afghans and 13 American service members at the Kabul airport.

New Zealand says it was not able to get everybody it wanted out of Afghanistan in time before the deadly attacks near Kabul’s airport brought its rescue mission to an end.

Mexico has accepted its first group of refugees from Afghanistan.

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Australia’s prime minister says Australian and New Zealand officials evacuated more than 650 people from Kabul Airport over Monday night.

An Indian official says an air force transport plane has left Kabul for New Delhi carrying 168 people on board.

Democratic-led congressional committees are vowing to press President Joe Biden’s administration on what went wrong as the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have vowed to respect women’s rights, forgive those who fought them and ensure Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists.

Chaos at the main airport in the Afghan capital has killed at least seven people.

President Joe Biden says he stands “squarely behind” his decision for the U.S. to leave Afghanistan.

A Taliban offensive is encircling the Afghan capital and there’s increasingly only one way out for those fleeing the war, and only one way in for U.S. troops sent to protect American diplomats still on the ground: Kabul’s international airport.

Turkey’s president says his country will talk with the Taliban regarding Turkey’s bid to operate and secure the airport in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Former U.S. President George W.

An Afghan official says a high-powered Afghan government delegation is to meet with the Taliban in Qatar to jump-start a long-stalled peace process.

America’s “forever war” in Afghanistan is rapidly winding down and the U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic missions in Kabul are looking at a worsening security situation and how to respond.

A surge of Taliban wins in northern Afghanistan has caused some countries to close consulates in the area, while Tajikistan is calling up reservists to reinforce its southern border.

The U.S. left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure more than two hours after they left.

U.S. officials say the U.S. military will remain involved in the Afghanistan war into September, keeping the option of launching airstrikes against the Taliban to defend Afghan forces.

U.S. officials tell The Associated Press that about 650 U.S. troops are expected to be kept in Afghanistan to provide security for the American diplomatic presence after the Pentagon completes its military withdrawal, which is set to be largely done in the next two weeks.

President Joe Biden has promised Afghanistan’s top leaders a “sustained” partnership even as he moves to accelerate winding down the United States’ longest war amid escalating Taliban violence.

Afghanistan’s former president says the United States came to his country to fight extremism and bring stability to his war-tortured nation and is leaving nearly 20 years later having failed at both.

Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid of the Maldives has won election as the next president of the U.N. General Assembly.

Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, center, arrives with other members of the Taliban delegation for an international peace conference in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, March 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)MOSCOW – Russia hosted a peace conference for Afghanistan on Thursday, bringing together government representatives, the Taliban and international observers in a bid to help jump-start the country's stalled peace process. Moscow’s attempt at mediation comes as talks in Qatar between the Afghan government and the Taliban, still waging an insurgency, have stalled. Washington and Kabul have been pressing for a cease-fire while the Taliban say they will negotiate it as part of peace talks with the Afghan government. Zamir Kabulov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Afghanistan, told reporters that the Afghan participants in the talks showed willingness to negotiate peace.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, March 11, 2021. Afghans are eager for peace and a recently floated U.S. draft for a deal between Taliban insurgents and the Afghan government is the best chance to accelerate stalled peace talks, ex-president Hamid Karzai said in an interview Thursday. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)KABUL – A recently floated U.S. draft for a deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government is the best chance to accelerate stalled peace talks between the country's warring sides, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview Thursday. Karzai, considered a key player in the talks going forward, told the AP that the proposed U.S. peace plan contains important provisions that could help bring peace to Afghanistan — with some revisions by both sides. AdDespite Karzai's optimistic assessment, the Washington plan could encounter serious opposition from President Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban.

Officials on both sides of Afghanistan's protracted conflict say efforts are ramping up for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations, a critical next step to a U.S. negotiated peace deal with the Taliban. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)KABUL Officials on both sides of Afghanistans protracted conflict say efforts are ramping up for a start to intra-Afghan negotiations, a critical next step to a U.S.-negotiated peace deal with the Taliban. The peace deal, which calls for the intra-Afghan negotiations, was signed by the U.S. and the Taliban in February and was seen at the time as Afghanistans best hope at peace after four decades of war. President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, who heads the High Council for National Reconciliation, the umbrella organization overseeing the government talks, says a reduction of violence or cease-fire will top their agenda. The group has reportedly completed its agenda and its 20-member negotiation team reports directly to Taliban chief Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada.

The negotiations were envisaged under a U.S.-Taliban peace agreement signed in February as intra-Afghan talks to decide the war-torn countrys future. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani issued a decree late Saturday establishing the 46-member council, led by his former rival in last years presidential election, Abdullah Abdullah, who is now in the government. The council will have the final say and will ultimately decide on the points that the negotiating team takes up with the Taliban. Among them is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who signed a peace deal with Ghani in 2016 but previously was declared a terrorist by the U.S. The Taliban team answers only to the insurgents' leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhunzada.