Herat, Afghanistan News

Go figure. Then again, I always thought it would be even less visited. Not because of its beauty, cold mountains and fantastic scenery, but because of regular bombings, terrorist attacks and being the home turf of Taliban.

An Afghan woman holds a child in a tuberculosis section of the main hospital in Herat on April 9, 2012.

It's hard not to be excited about a three-day weekend and the subsequent four-day week that follows Memorial Day.

A new female recruit of the Afghanistan police force during a training session south of Herat, western Afghanistan.

KABUL, Afghanistan - At least six Afghan policemen guarding a strategically important dam were killed in a roadside bombing Tuesday in the war-torn country's western province of Herat, officials said.

A powerful roadside bomb killed six policemen in western Afghanistan on Tuesday when their vehicle hit the explosives buried in the road, an Afghan official said.

A powerful roadside bomb has killed six policemen in Afghanistan's west, officials said.

A combined Afghan and coalition security force arrested three insurgents today during a search for an insurgent leader with ties to the Taliban and Haqqani terrorist networks in the Sabari district of Afghanistan's Khost province, military officials reported.

The European Union threw its weight behind developing Afghanistan's small but promising private sector this week, in the hope that business can usher in stability and peace once foreign troops leave by the end of next year.

For our series on the Changing Lives of Women , we're asking NPR women about their careers - and inviting you to join the conversation.

Conservative religious lawmakers in Afghanistan blocked a law on Saturday that aims to protect women's freedoms, with some arguing that parts of it violate Islamic principles or encourage women to have sex outside of marriage.

Nawaz Sharif's victory in Pakistan's general elections is being seen with some alarm in Afghanistan, where some fear it may mean more instability.

U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, delivers letters written to the troops from first-grade students at Captain Strong Elementary school in Battle Ground.

A little more than a decade later and with the Taliban long since overthrown, the prospects for women living in Afghanistan are brighter than ever, said U.S. Rep.

Former Afghan Taliban members hand over their weapons after joining the Afghan government's reconciliation and reintegration program in Herat province on March 19, 2013.

Known as the "Shindand boneyard," scraps of Soviet aircraft from the 1980s litter the landscape at Shindand Air Base , an Afghan military base in the westernmost province of Herat.

Afghanistan: 'Spring Market 2013' - charity initiative sponsored by Italian Provincial Reconstruction Team Herat, May 13, 2013 - Today at 'Camp Arena' a fund raiser called 'Spring Market 2013', the usual appointment with the spring market organized by the Italian Provincial Reconstruction Team in Heart took place.

Insiders in Afghanistan's embattled civil aviation industry say the government's "open skies" policy is squeezing them out of existence.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has irked Washington with his frequent criticism of American military operations in his country, said Thursday that his government is now ready to let the U.S. have nine bases across Afghanistan after most foreign troops withdraw in 2014.

Hostility to the U.S. role in Afghanistan, regional ambitions and an economy choked by Western sanctions have contributed to a tough Iranian policy against Afghan migrants who flee war and seek work in their more prosperous neighbour.