KABUL, Afghanistan (IHT) As Afghan officials reported more civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes on Thursday, witnesses to a strike that apparently hit a wedding party earlier this week said the civilian death toll could be more than double the 40 reported so far by Afghan officials.

KABUL (Xinhua) -- The war-torn Afghanistan has seen deteriorating of security in the past months as criminal gangs and militants have resorted to abduction of foreigners and attacking soft targets as a new tactic to destabilize security and defame the government.

KABUL (IHT) As the new planting season for opium poppy draws near, the governor of Helmand, Afghanistan's largest poppy-producing province, says that this year he is determined to beat the illicit crop, which is a major source of money for drug lords and insurgents alike.

KABUL (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has disclosed that his administration wanted talks with Taliban through the mediation of Saudi Arabia, an Afghan web site Quqnoos reported on Wednesday.

(VOA) Afghan and international forces have agreed to suspend military operations on September 21 in observance of United Nations "Peace Day."

YAKOWLANG, Afghanistan (IHT) A pitiable harvest this year has left small farmers all over central and northern Afghanistan facing hunger, and aid officials are warning of an acute food shortage this winter for nine million Afghans, more than a quarter of the population.

(Guardian) General Ali Shah Khan Paktiwal, the chief of the Kabul criminal investigation department, sits forward in his chair, stubs out a Marlboro Red and stabs the air with his finger. "Paktiwal knows no fear," he says quietly. "Paktiwal does not even know the meaning of the word fear."

KABUL (IRIN) - The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says donors must provide "vital funding” to enable aid agencies to avert a possible humanitarian crisis this winter.

(Euronews) Reports are coming in of serious loss of civilian life in Afghanistan during a raid by coalition forces. The Afghan Interior Ministry says 76 civilians, most of them women and children, were killed during a US-led bombardment in Herat province.

KABUL (IHT) Taliban insurgents have mounted their most serious attacks in six years of fighting, an ambush on French troops Tuesday that killed 10 soldiers and wounded 21, according to military officials, and a complex attack Monday night on a U.S. military base with several suicide bombers.