Avenging bin Laden: Taliban Unleash Spring Offensive in Afghanistan

Taliban fighters carried out a series of coordinated attacks across the embattled southern Afghan city of Kandahar Saturday — a campaign that Afghan President Hamid Karzai characterized as “revenge” for the death of Osama bin Laden. Insurgents first assaulted the provincial governor’s palace with rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire and then launched a series of strikes across the city on the headquarters of the Afghan National Police and the Transportation Police, on Police Sub-station One as well as various other Afghan National Security Force and International Security and Assistance Force buildings in both Kandahar city and in the Arghandab River Valley, ISAF reported.

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Taliban leader rejects U.S. attempts to lure away fighters with money

A top Taliban political leader delivered a message Friday to President Obama, calling his attempt to lure away Taliban fighters with money “an old weapon that has failed already.” Obama meets Friday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will tell the U.S. leader how a large deployment to Afghanistan would affect the military

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U.S. set to pay Taliban members to switch sides

There is a well-known saying in Afghanistan: “You can rent an Afghan, but you can’t buy him.” “There’s been an amnesty program for low-level Taliban in place for many years now and thousands of people have taken advantage of it,” he said.

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Italy denies report it ‘paid off’ Taliban to protect its troops

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi denied Thursday that payments to the Taliban in Afghanistan were authorized to protect Italian soldiers deployed there. The accusation, published by the London Times, is “baseless,” his office said in a written statement

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