Guantánamo Bay

Administration briefs Senate leaders on Taliban transfer

Posted By Josh Rogin Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - 11:37 PM Share

Top Obama administration officials briefed eight senior Senate leaders Tuesday on a pending deal to transfer as many as five Taliban prisoners from the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Qatar. 

Catch-and-release of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan angers troops

By: Sara A. Carter | 12/06/10 8:05 PM
National security correspondent | Follow on Twitter @SaraCarterDC

FILE: Surrendering Taliban militants stand with their weapons as they are presented to the media on November 4, 2010 in Herat, Afghanistan. Twenty Taliban fighters from Afghanistan's Herat province have surrendered to government troops in Herat, west of the capital city of Kabul. After an amnesty launched by President Hamid Karzai in November 2004, hundreds of anti-government Taliban militants have since surrendered to the government. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

More than 500 suspected Taliban fighters detained by U.S. forces have been released from custody at the urging of Afghan government officials, angering both American troops and some Afghans who oppose the policy on the grounds that many of those released return to the battlefield to kill NATO soldiers and Afghan civilians.

Panetta: U.S., NATO will seek to end Afghan combat mission next year

Jacquelyn Martin/AP - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta answers questions from the media on board his plane en route to a NATO conference in Brussels on Wednesday.

• Text Size
• Print
• E-mail
• Reprints

By Craig Whitlock and Karen DeYoung, Updated: Wednesday, February 1, 2:59 PM

BRUSSELS — The United States and NATO will seek to end their combat mission in Afghanistan next year and shift to a role of providing support and training to Afghan security forces, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Wednesday.

U.S. military commanders had said in recent weeks they would begin a transition this year toward taking more of an advisory role as Afghanistan’s national army and police take greater responsibility for fighting the insurgency. But Panetta’s remarks were the first time the Obama administration has said it could foresee an end to regular U.S. and NATO combat operations by the second half of next year.