Ron Synovitz is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged Pakistan's government to launch a "robust response" to last week's terrorist attacks in India. Rice was in Islamabad after visiting India, which blames elements in Pakistan for the attacks. Pakistan's government initially denied any link to the attackers, but it now says it will "take strong action" against anyone in Pakistan found to have been involved.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in New Delhi for talks aimed at defusing tensions between Pakistan and India over last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
With India accusing Pakistan of links to the Mumbai terrorist attacks, relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors are at their lowest point since the two countries pulled back from the brink of war in 2002. Experts say this creates a major foreign-policy challenge for the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama -- how to keep tensions between India and Pakistan from derailing the fight against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Pakistani sources suggest that closing that country's powerful intelligence community's political arm will have little effect on foreign policy or the ISI's role in counterterrorism. But the change comes as Washington has been privately urging Islamabad to rein in ISI elements with alleged links to Islamic militants.
UN officials say they are concerned about the spate of executions that has taken place in Afghanistan this week. But a growing number of Afghans -- weary of lawlessness and increased violent crime in their country -- are demanding that the government execute more.
Delegates from Central and South Asia have gathered in Dushanbe today -- together with a senior official from the U.S. State Department -- for talks on how regional cooperation can improve Afghanistan's security situation. Hosted by Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahmon, the gathering includes representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.
The fight against militant extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan is one of the major challenges facing U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. But the often conflicting views of U.S. and Afghan officials, regional analysts, and Obama advisers on the issue reveal the difficult decisions ahead.
General David Petraeus -- the U.S. military commander who oversaw "surge" operations that have helped stabilize Iraq -- is taking on an even broader assignment. The soldier-scholar with a doctorate from Princeton University is becoming the new head of U.S. Central Command -- a role that makes him responsible for U.S. military policy across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf region.
PRAGUE -- In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman has detailed the Pentagon's concerns in the war on terrorism, including difficulties in applying the lessons learned in Iraq to the conflict in Afghanistan.
The head of the election commission dismissed those reports, saying election fraud has not been possible in Azerbaijan since revisions that were introduced after parliamentary elections in 2005.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev appears set to win another five-year term of office after an election that was boycotted by the country's five largest opposition parties.
The Iraqi government has promised to send officials to northern Iraq to tackle violence against Christians there. The pledge comes amid a spate of killings of Christians in the northern city of Mosul, where violence against the minority community has prompted more than 1,000 families to flee.
Critics say a failure to bring Taliban into Afghanistan's political mainstream is a major obstacle to stabilization efforts. Now, word of possible peace talks between government and Taliban representatives comes as Western commanders conclude that military action alone cannot bring an end to the violence.
Seven years ago, the United States began bombing Taliban-ruled Afghanistan after its refusal to hand over Al-Qaeda leaders who plotted the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Since the collapse of the Taliban regime a few weeks later, the lives of many Afghans have changed for the better. But others' haven't, leaving them to wonder what the foreign forces have done for them.
Officials in Afghanistan have begun registering voters for next year's presidential election, in which Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he will seek a second five-year term.
Questions are swirling over the fate of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, with a Pakistani television channel reporting he has died of illness but Taliban spokesmen dismissing the report.
Iraq's parliament has passed a provincial elections law after months of bickering between Arabs and Kurds over the northern city of Kirkuk.
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, in New York this week for the opening of the UN General Assembly, has been making the rounds on the U.S. media circuit. The U.S. government will not let Ahmadinejad travel far outside New York City, but that hasn't stopped him from giving interviews to international news organizations.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is visiting Latvia's capital, Riga, for talks with the Latvian president and the foreign ministers of the three Baltic states -- Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
There was no immediate government response from Pakistan, but that country's military insists it will not allow foreign troops to carry out operations on its soil.
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