KABUL — Afghanistan’s parliament rejected powerful warlord Ismail Khan for a new term as the country’s energy minister Saturday and turned down at least 10 others nominated for Cabinet posts by President Hamid Karzai.The laborious reading of individual votes continued into the evening, but the incomplete tally showed Karzai clearly facing significant resistance from lawmakers as he tries to get his second term in office into full swing.Khan — accused by human rights groups of complicity in war crimes — was one of 10 incumbents nominated by Karzai to serve in his 25-member Cabinet. Some incumbents were seen as favorites of the United States and other Western nations whose financial and military support is critical to Karzai.But Khan, a warlord in western Herat province during Afghanistan’s civil war, was a controversial choice and critics said his nomination reflected the extent to which Karzai is beholden to regional power-brokers.In another high-stakes political issue, the chief of Afghanistan’s elections commission said Saturday a parliamentary vote will be held in May despite widespread international concern that the country’s electoral system needs serious reform.Elections commission chief Ali Najafi told a news conference the national vote will be held May 22.However, he said Afghanistan needs about $50 …

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Warlord rejected for new Afghan Cabinet

BAGHDAD — You won’t find Iraq listed as a Top 10 honeymoon destination in the glossy pages of any bridal magazine, but there’s nowhere else newlyweds Miguel and Amanda Perez would rather be right now.“I like to think about it like it’s the military sending us on a vacation,” joked Miguel, a 24-year-old sergeant from Houston. “Sand and palm trees everywhere — a nine-month honeymoon.”The Perezes are one of six married couples who deployed to Iraq with the 72nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, a Texas Army National Guard unit headquartered in Houston. About 3,000 soldiers from the brigade are stationed across the country, assigned to missions such as Green Zone security, detainee operations, force protection and convoys.Both Perezes served in Iraq before. Miguel deployed from 2006-07. Amanda deployed from 2008-09.“We know what the military expects of us, and we know that the military has to come first,” said Amanda, a 23-year-old specialist from Beaumont.Amanda and Miguel met in the Guard and married at a courthouse Oct. 2, during a break in training. Since then, they’ve lived in group tents or barracks separated by gender, only seeing each other for…

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In love and war: marriage on the front lines

NORFOLK, Va. — More than 6,000 sailors and Marines have left Norfolk for a six-month tour at sea.The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group left Norfolk Naval Station Saturday morning.With temperatures hovering just above 30 degrees, most said their goodbyes at home or somewhere warm. Still, about 75 loved ones and friends gathered to wave and cheer as the carrier left.The Eisenhower was to be followed by the Carrier Air Wing Seven and the Norfolk-based destroyer McFaul.The strike group also includes the cruiser Hue City and destroyers Carney and Farragut from Mayport, Fla.The strike group is headed to the Middle East for anti-piracy efforts and to support the war in Iraq.The sailors have been home five months since their last six-month deployment.

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Dwight D. Eisenhower CSG deploys

FORWARD OPERATING BASE COBRA, Iraq — The top U.S. general in Iraq says the country’s delay in holding elections will not keep American combat forces from leaving as scheduled by the end of August.Gen. Ray Odierno said Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press that he expects the U.S. to have about 100,000 troops in the country during the March 7 elections.About 60 days after the vote, he will assess whether the country is on stable footing and then begin moving troops out.Iraq was originally scheduled to hold elections in January but political wrangling over the election law delayed the nationwide vote until March.Under a U.S. plan, all combat troops are slated to leave Iraq by the end of August.

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Odierno: Iraq drawdown on track

BAGHDAD — Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection responded with bitterness and outrage Friday at a U.S. judge’s decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings.The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the U.S. and the Iraqi government. Many Iraqis also held up the judge’s decision as proof of what they’d long believed: U.S. security contractors were above the law.“There is no justice,” said Bura Sadoun Ismael, who was wounded by two bullets and shrapnel during the shooting. “I expected the American court would side with the Blackwater security guards who committed a massacre in Nisoor Square.”What happened on Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007, raised Iraqi concerns about their sovereignty because Iraqi officials were powerless to do anything to the Blackwater employees who had immunity from local prosecution. The shootings also highlighted the degree to which the U.S. relied on private contractors during the Iraq conflict.Blackwater had been hired by the State Department to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq. The guards said they were ambushed at…

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Iraqis outraged as Blackwater case thrown out

When airmen at Fairchild and McChord Air Force bases learned that one of their own had been robbed of his most valuable possessions in Spokane, Wash., they didn’t hesitate.Within two days, Tech. Sgt. Dewey Brown and his wife, Sharon, were inundated with gifts of cash, clothing, food, lodging and Christmas presents for their 7-year-old daughter, Cami.The gesture turned a holiday heartbreak into a life-affirming story.“There are no words to express our gratitude and appreciation,” Brown said. “What a humbling experience.”Brown and his family were on the last leg of a move from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to McChord when they stopped at a motel for the night. On the morning of Dec. 21, Brown awoke to find that their truck and moving trailer had been stolen from the parking lot. Police recovered the vehicles that afternoon, but valuables including laptops, jewelry, firearms, clothing and Christmas gifts had been taken.Brown didn’t think to contact Fairchild, but his father, a retired airman who belongs to a veterans motorcycle association, was able to get word to a master sergeant at the base who is also a member. As news of Brown’s situation spread throughout the base, donations began to pour in.Fairchild airmen collected more…

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Bases lend hand to PCSing family hit by thieves

MIR ALI, Pakistan — The Pakistani Taliban claimed Friday that they used a turncoat CIA operative to carry out a suicide bombing that killed seven American CIA employees in Afghanistan as revenge for a top militant leader’s death in U.S. missile strike.The announcement was nearly impossible to verify independently because it involves covert operations in a dangerous region. It is highly unusual for the Pakistani Taliban to claim credit for an attack in Afghanistan, and the proclamation followed indications the Afghan Taliban may have been involved in the attack.CIA spokesman George Little could not confirm the account.“There is much about the attack that isn’t yet known, but this much is clear: The CIA’s resolve to pursue aggressive counterterrorism operations is greater than ever,” he told The Associated Press.The suicide bomber struck the CIA’s operation at Camp Chapman in eastern Khost province on Wednesday. The base was used to direct and coordinate CIA operations and intelligence gathering in Khost, a hotbed of insurgent activity because of its proximity to Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, former CIA officials said. Among the seven killed was the chief of the operation, they said.Six other people were wounded in what was one of the worst attacks in CIA history.Qari Hussain, a top militant commander with the Pakistani Taliban who is believed to be a suicide bombing mastermind, said militants had been searching for a way to damage the CIA’s…

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Pakistan Taliban says it bombed CIA site

BAGHDAD — A British computer programmer seized in Iraq was held in Iran for at least part of his captivity, the U.S. general who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan said on Friday.Gen. David Petraeus said, however, that it was difficult to tell whether Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard or the Quds force — an arm of the Guard involved in foreign operations — had a role in Peter Moore’s capture.U.S. officials have accused Iran of funneling money and arms to Shiite militias in Iraq through the Quds force and of seeking to exert a negative influence over the neighboring country and its Shiite-dominated government.The assertion that Moore, who was taken by a Shiite extremist group in Iraq, had been moved to Iran at some stage pointed to the possibility of continued Iranian involvement in its neighbor’s affairs. Petraeus warned Friday that Iranian-backed militias still to pose a threat to Iraq’s stability.“It is difficult to say what role the Revolutionary Guards Corps and in particular the Quds force element played in that. I am on the record as having said that our intelligence assessment is that he certainly spent at least part…

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Petraeus: U.K. prisoner in Iraq for a time

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Before enrolling in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program at Asheville High School, William Michaels says he struggled to keep his anger under control.Now, the high school senior says, he doesn’t get in trouble much anymore, thanks to leadership skills shaped by Junior ROTC. He spends much of the school day — plus hours after school, some weekends and part of summer vacation — in the building where program students work out, hit the books and shoot air rifles.“It’s more than a class. It’s like a giant support group,” says Michaels, 17.An increasing number of teenagers are getting early exposure to military life through their high schools. Enrollment jumped 5 percent this year to 513,297 students in Junior ROTC programs, according to combined Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force statistics. That far outpaced the program’s growth from 2005 to 2008, those statistics show.The growth is driven in part by the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, which directed the Pentagon to add high schools to the program. The goal was to have 3,700 programs by 2020. There are about 3,400, according to combined military statistics.Students may soon be able to get involved even younger. A program modeled on the Army’s …

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More students turning to Junior ROTC programs

MAIDAN SHAR, Afghanistan — Trucks gaily painted with hearts and doves jam up at crowded wayside bazaars. Billboards advertise cell phones and advise drivers to keep their donkeys off the road.It’s not readily evident that this is probably the world’s most dangerous highway, a prime target for Taliban insurgents attempting to sever a vital 620-mile (1,000-kilometer) artery with ambushes, executions and roadside bombs.Widely seen as symbolic of Afghanistan’s progress and security, or lack of it, Highway 1 suffered a dramatic increase in bomb attacks in 2009, but also a marked improvement along a critical 55-mile (90-kilometer) stretch after U.S. forces arrived in strength.“Last year the insurgents were very successful in interdicting convoys. They can’t stage that type of attack anymore,” says Lt. Col. Kimo Gallahue, who commands a U.S. battalion guarding the highway just south of Kabul. “Since August we’ve been ripping through the enemy. Mass matters.”The situation is starkly different as the highway veers farther south into the Taliban heartland. Overall, roadside bomb attacks have risen by more than 50 percent — from 308 in 2008 to 469 last year. But 394 were discovered before they detonated, up from 254 the previous year, according to a command spokesman, Lt. Col. Todd Vician.Since the U.S. invasion of 2001, this vital land link between the country’s two largest cities has been hotly and violently contested. About 35 percent of Afghanistan’s population lives within 30 miles (50 kilometers) of the Kandahar-to…

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Troops work to secure high-profile Afghan road