Afghanistan

According to court documents, a VA nurse allegedly used private information to harass the wife of late retired soldier Christian H. McCoy.

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the military is on track to completely withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by spring 2021.

The Taliban and the Islamic State remain adversaries, but for the United States to rely so heavily on the Taliban as a cornerstone of its counterterrorism strategy seems a risky proposition.

Results of a new national survey, which collected antibody tests from thousands of people across Afghanistan, suggested as many as 10 million could have contracted COVID-19 at some point during the outbreak.

The group's Afghan affiliate claimed responsibility for the attack on a prison in Jalalabad and said it had freed hundreds of inmates.

The Russian government has been accused of offering Taliban fighters bounties for U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan.

Pompeo said Wednesday that Russia had been supplying weapons to the Taliban for 10 years, putting American lives in danger.

One Pentagon official described Russia's behind-the-scenes Taliban ties as an "influence operation against U.S. interests," another called it "a covert support program with layers."

Families of U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan have called for an investigation into claims their deaths were due to a bounty scheme funded by Russia.

Russian officials dismissed reports that bounties were offered by Russia to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. troops.

"Whether it's Xi of China, whether it's Putin, you don't get bad words against them from the Twitter handle," Congressman Adam Kinzinger said.

Initial reports stated that President Donald Trump did not learn about the bounties offered until this year.

We must take decisive action against the threat emanating from Putin's Russia.

The shadowy military intelligence group has been linked to multiple assassination efforts and other plots around Europe over the past decade.

After a New York Times article alleged that Donald Trump had been informed about bounties placed on U.S. and U.K. troops by Russian military operatives, the White House said Trump did not know.

"In any system in which the rule of law is respected, courts are never coerced. They may be criticized—even robustly. But never coerced," ICC President Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji told Newsweek in an interview.

President Donald Trump "has authorized economic sanctions against International Criminal Court officials directly engaged with any effort to investigate or prosecute United States personnel without the consent of the United States."

The coronavirus epidemic has created the temptation to forgo the complicated peace process and to simply withdraw our troops. This is the very last thing America should be doing.

ACLED's Roudabeh Kishi told Newsweek "armed, organized groups not only adapt to shocks—both internal ones as well as external ones, like COVID-19—but also can use them to further their goals."

The Pentagon counts 2,445 U.S. casualties as a result of the war in Afghanistan, a figure recently exceeded by those killed domestically by COVID-19.

Afghanistan will free 100 Taliban prisoners "on humanitarian grounds—including health, age and vulnerability to COVID19," but new ISIS-claimed violence threatens to upend a delicate peace process.

The U.S. top negotiator in Afghanistan said that COVID-19 "makes prisoner releases urgent" as the Taliban's spokesperson urged "world's humanitarian and health organizations to pay special attention" to their plight.

The sad truth is women's rights are far down the agenda for the U.S. They're not even mentioned in the Doha accord, despite pressure from international rights groups and the media.

Sen. Chris Murphy said the security guarantees offered by the Taliban "are so vague as to be effectively void."

Local Islamic State branch ISIS-Khorasan claimed responsibility for the suspected rocket attack, which did not shake Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calls the ICC's decision to approve the Afghan war crime probe "a truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable political institution, masquerading as a legal body."

President Donald Trump said he "had a very good talk" with the Taliban, which released details of the conversation.

"Al-Qaeda and ISIS will come forward again to threaten us," the South Carolina lawmaker said, arguing against a full withdrawal of U.S. troops.

The deal could see all U.S. and NATO troops leave the country within 14 months, ending America's longest-running conflict.

This deal will completely demoralize the current Afghan government and military by conveying undue legitimacy on the wrong factions within the Taliban that are seeking to set the U.S. up for failure