Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan police freed a female German hostage from a Kabul neighborhood and arrested a group of kidnappers early today, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. The 31-year-old aid worker was freed during a raid in the western part of the capital not far from the restaurant where she was seized Saturday while dining with her husband, Zemary Bashari said. The woman's husband was not abducted. In Berlin, a spokeswoman for Germany's Foreign Ministry confirmed the woman was "in safety at the German Embassy" in Kabul.

WASHINGTON - Ryan Crocker, the unflappable diplomat who became the civilian face of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over two administrations, is stepping down as ambassador to Afghanistan and retiring from the US foreign service after a storied tenure in some of the world's most dangerous hotspots. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Tuesday that the 62-year-old veteran envoy would leave his post in Kabul this summer because of health reasons she declined to detail.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Four armed assailants kidnapped a German aid worker dining with her husband at a restaurant in Kabul in a bold midday attack, as the Taliban said negotiations for the release of 19 remaining South Korean hostages have failed. Meanwhile, a suicide car bomb attack killed 15 people and wounded 26, including several women and children, in Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar. The abduction of the 31-year-old German woman, who works for a small Christian aid organization along with her husband, prompted police in Kabul to shoot at the speeding getaway car, killing a nearby taxi...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Veteran US diplomat Ryan Crocker will be leaving his post as ambassador to Afghanistan this summer, an embassy spokesman said Tuesday. Crocker, 62, came out of retirement last July to take over the post after a request from President Barack Obama. Crocker was widely known for his role as US ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009. It is unclear why he is leaving the post a year ahead of schedule or who will replace him. The most likely candidate would be James Cunningham, one of four other ambassadors serving under Crocker in Kabul.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Insurgents struck yesterday at hotels in the heart of Kabul with suicide attackers and a car bomb, killing at least 16 people - half of them foreigners - in an assault that showed the militants remain a potent force despite setbacks on the battlefield and the arrest of more than a dozen key leaders. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks, which Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, said targeted Indians working in Kabul. At least six of the dead were Indian citizens, including some government officials, Indian authorities said.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan police ordered 7,000 officers onto the streets of Kabul to guard against attacks on senior leaders during Independence Day celebrations today, responding to signs of the Taliban's growing strength near the capital. Even the location of the celebration of Afghanistan's 89th anniversary of independence from Britain was kept secret and will be closed to the public to try to minimize the risk insurgents could again disrupt a national commemoration.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Suicide bombers rammed explosive-laden cars into NATO forces in two attacks yesterday. A German soldier and an Afghan child were among eight people killed, and at least a dozen other people were wounded. A spokesman for NATO's peacekeeping force, Major Andrew Elmes, said the other six bodies were believed to be those of Afghans. It was the first major assault on foreign troops in Kabul in more than a year. Today, police blamed Al Qaeda for the bombings.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Shakespeare has come to Afghanistan. Four centuries after the famous bard's death, one of his plays has been adapted for the local culture in an effort to help revive a once-thriving theater scene and to promote peace in a country riven by ethnic hatred and still wracked by violence after decades of war. "Theater is the best way to communicate messages in Afghanistan, whether it be about peace, democracy, or women's rights....

KABUL -- Assailants, some wearing suicide vests, attacked the Justice Ministry and another government building in the Afghan capital this morning, causing multiple deaths and forcing people to flee from building windows, officials and witnesses said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks. At least five men armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked the Justice Ministry in the center of Kabul, said Mohammad Ali, a ministry employee. Two assailants died in the ensuing firefight with security officers, while the others were still holed up in the...

Veteran U.S. diplomat Ryan Crocker will be leaving his post as ambassador to Afghanistan this summer, an embassy spokesman said Tuesday. Crocker, 62, came out of retirement last July to take over the post after a request from President Barack Obama. Crocker was widely known for his role as U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009. It is unclear why he is leaving the post a year ahead of schedule or who will replace him. The most likely candidate would be James Cunningham, one of four other ambassadors serving under Crocker in Kabul.

Veteran U.S. diplomat Ryan Crocker will be leaving his post as ambassador to Afghanistan this summer, an embassy spokesman said Tuesday. Crocker, 62, came out of retirement last July to take over the post after a request from President Barack Obama. Crocker was widely known for his role as U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009. It is unclear why he is leaving the post a year ahead of schedule or who will replace him. The most likely candidate would be James Cunningham, one of four other ambassadors serving under Crocker in Kabul.

KABUL - A bomb exploded at a market in northern Afghanistan on Monday, killing nine people, including a local official, authorities said. The Ministry of Interior said the bomb went off in the morning inside a shop in the Ghormuch district of Faryab Province. The ministry said the nine dead included a council member from a neighboring province. In a separate statement, the ministry said police killed 18 insurgents in operations across the country over the past 24 hours. Also Monday, hundreds of people in Kabul mourned the death of a former high-ranking Taliban...

An assassin on Sunday shot dead a former high-ranking Taliban official working on reconciling Afghanistan's insurgency with the government, a fresh blow to peace efforts on the day Kabul announced it was gradually taking the lead from the U.S.-led coalition for providing security in much of the country. A gunman with a silenced pistol killed Arsala Rahmani as he was riding in his car in one of the capital's most secure areas near Kabul University, police said. The death of Rahmani, a top member of the Afghan peace council and a senator in parliament's upper house, dealt another...

KABUL - Less than two hours after President Obama left Afghanistan, powerful explosions shook Kabul on Wednesday as a team of suicide attackers struck a private residential compound used by hundreds of foreigners in the east of the city, breaching the outer perimeter and leaving at least eight dead - seven Afghans and a guard - and about 17 wounded, officials said. At around 6:15 a.m., attackers wearing suicide vests drove a car packed with explosives up to the main gate of the compound, called the Green Village.

Highlights of the strategic partnership agreement signed in Kabul by President Barack Obama and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai outlining the relationship between their countries after the U.S.-led war ends in 2014: — U.S. commits to support Afghanistan's social and economic development, security, institutions and regional cooperation for 10 years, through 2024. — Afghanistan commits to strengthen government accountability, transparency and oversight, and to protect the human rights of all Afghans, both men and women.

KABUL - A man wearing an Afghan Army uniform fatally shot an American service member in southern Afghanistan, officials said Thursday, the latest in a string of attacks against US and other foreign forces by their Afghan partners or insurgents in disguise. Since the beginning of the year, there have been at least 16 such attacks against American and other international troops. The shootings have strained US-Afghan ties already suffering from a lack of trust following the Koran burnings at a US base and the alleged killing spree by an American soldier in the south in recent...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber assassinated a provincial governor yesterday, and the US military warned that a terror cell has set up in the Afghan capital to target foreign troops. In the south, NATO said its forces had killed at least 94 Taliban fighters in airstrikes and ground attacks, pushing the reported toll from a nine-day counterinsurgency operation past 420. A top local official said the battle was winding down, and residents said hundreds of militants had fled the area.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Militants linked to the Taliban threatened yesterday to kill three UN workers kidnapped in Kabul unless British troops withdraw from Afghanistan, and unless Afghan prisoners are freed from US custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Armed men seized the three on Thursday in Kabul. They have been identified as Annetta Flanigan of Northern Ireland; Angelito Nayan, a Philippine diplomat; and Shqipe Habibi of Kosovo. All were working on the Afghan presidential vote, held Oct. 9, in which President Hamid Karzai is expected to be declared the winner.