The U.N.'s new representative to war-torn Afghanistan said Wednesday that he was encouraged by widespread discussion about prospects for making peace with the Taliban.

PARIS (Reuters) - French troops will start handing over security to the Afghan army in March and focus on training until pulling out of Afghanistan completely at the end of 2013, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Friday. Sarkozy suspended training and support operations on the ground last week and sent his defense minister and armed forces chief to Kabul after four of their soldiers were killed ...

Kudos for Obama and his team! They’ve announced a quick end to U.S. combat in Afghanistan—a surprise decision of strategic skill and political courage, writes Leslie H. Gelb.

An unpopular leader entangled in an unpopular war that he once staunchly defended, President Nicolas Sarkozy is suddenly considering a pullout of French troops from Afghanistan as another kind of campaign approaches: For his own re-election.

Afghanistan has reached a grim death toll milestone in the ar there. Betty Nguyen reports.

KABUL (Reuters) - Senior Afghan peace negotiators believe the Taliban are willing to significantly soften past hardline ideologies, with its leaders already laying the ground for possible peace talks in the Gulf state of Qatar. Former Taliban minister Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a member of the High Peace Council set up by President Hamid Karzai two years ago to liaise with insurgents, said that ...

An Afghan lawmaker has sharply criticized France's plans to hand over security in her troubled province to Afghan troops within a few months, saying that her country's forces are unprepared to handle the job and more violence would result.

War and peace in Afghanistan will be a major foreign policy challenge in the November general election. What to do about nearly 100,000 American troops serving in a decade-long war is one of the biggest decisions for either President Barack Obama or ...

President Barack Obama 's military advisers plan on the U.S. and its NATO allies ending combat operations in Afghanistan perhaps as soon as mid-2013, a year and a half early. That lays the groundwork for the coalition leaving well before the announced 2014 deadline.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. forces will cede the lead role in combat operations in Afghanistan next year, but will keep fighting alongside Afghan troops, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday, as the Obama administration struggled to clear up confusion over its Afghan exit strategy. Panetta surprised allies on Wednesday by suggesting the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan would end in ...