"Afghanistan"

Now that the Obama administration has decided to keep U.S. forces in the country longer than initially planned, the 14-year conflict will likely be handed to his successor.

Senior administration officials say the U.S. will keep 9,800 troops in 2016 for its missions of counterterrorism and to train Afghan forces. The president had planned on a smaller presence.

John Campbell, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, said he was correcting initial reports that it was U.S. forces under fire from Taliban fighters. The weekend airstrike killed 22 civilians.

In early 2014, the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency accepted a newly built warehouse facility. There was one snag: The agency was poised to leave the country.

The Afghan army is now fully in charge of combat operations. NPR’s Tom Bowman heads out on a mission with troops as they engage the Taliban in one of its strongholds near the Pakistani border.

A suicide bomb attack on a British diplomatic vehicle killed five people, including a British national. Later, a blast and gunfire were heard in the city’s diplomatic area.

In 2014, more than 550,000 acres of Afghan land were cultivated — that’s approaching the total land area of Rhode Island.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has some more bad news for U.S. taxpayers: The $7.6 billion the United States has spent on its counternarcotic efforts in Afghanistan has done little to reduce poppy production.

The San Diego Unified School District has acquired an MRAP, or mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle.