Note from Mark: I can personally attest to what Soraya says about the lakes at Band-i-Amir. On one of my trips to Afghanistan for USA TODAY in 2002 and 2003, I had the opportunity to go that part ...

Sen. Ben Nelson suggested Thursday the possibility of using designated benchmarks to assess progress in Afghanistan. Nelson, who negotiated the inclusion of benchmarks in the 2007 supplemental ...

For many Afghans, NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson just told us, life has not been getting better in the past few years. "It's changed for the worse," she said. Soraya is in Washington for a few days ...