Afghanistan may have more than a trillion dollars worth of untapped mineral deposits, a spokesman for the ministry of mines has suggested.

A joint team from the Pentagon, US Geological Service and USAID has calculated Afghanistan's mineral deposits are worth at least $900bn.

Geological surveys discovered large quantities of iron and copper as well as valuable deposits of lithium.

But questions are being asked about the timing of the release of information.

Read more @ BBC News

Nice going morons.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said "This was to sabotage the operation and to show we can strike anywhere, any time we want."

I think he just forgot that Islam forbids such things like indiscriminate mass murder. Oops.

Kandahar blasts were warning to US and Nato - Taliban

Saturday's bomb attacks in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar were a warning to US and Nato forces, the Taliban say.

A Taliban spokesman said the attacks were in response to a planned major offensive by international forces against militants in the region.

At least 35 people were killed and some 57 injured in the blasts in Kandahar, Afghanistan's third largest city.

Well, that is what a top general says:

McChrystal's blunt warning to the West

This leaked report offers a blunt and bleak assessment of the challenges facing Afghanistan - and a timetable for possible failure.

Put simply, General Stanley McChrystal acknowledges that the US could lose this war in the next 12 months.

The US commander wants more boots on the ground.

He calls for a speeding up in the training of the Afghan security forces.

And, in the coming weeks, Gen McChrystal is expected to ask for as many as 30,000 extra US forces.

But after a deeply flawed election in Afghanistan which has yet to be resolved, there is growing opposition in President Barack Obama's own Democratic Party to the war.

In the villages of Afghanistan, many young men are working for the government during the week, but fighting for the Taliban at weekends.

"We don't get paid," says Gul Mohammad.

"It's voluntary - all for the sake of God. We even buy fuel for the operations ourselves. And our own ammunition and bullets."

Gul Mohammad (his name changed to protect his identity) is not what you might think of as a typical Taliban fighter.

He is educated, in his 20s, married with children and, during the week, he works in a government office.

"I'm a civil servant - that's how I support my family, with my salary and by growing wheat, here in the village.

Nato's failing mission is increasingly coming to resemble the Soviets' disastrous campaign

It is deja vu on a huge and bloody scale. General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, is about to advise his president that "the Afghan people are undergoing a crisis of confidence because the war against the Taliban has not made their lives better", according to leaked reports. Change the word "Taliban" to "mujahideen", and you have an exact repetition of what the Russians found a quarter of a century ago.