Beth Murphy’s warm and uplifting documentary Beyond Belief follows two women’s ability to transform the shattering events of 9/11 into a message of hope. Susan Retik and Patti Quigley, upper middle class, pregnant New England soccer moms lost their husbands in 9/11. Introduced by mutual friends, they formed a fast friendship and through their conversations [...]

In a meeting Sunday at the presidential palace in Kabul to investigate reports of multiple civilian deaths in a US operation in Konar province, General David Petraeus deeply offended those present when he suggested that Afghan civilians had deliberately burned their children in an effort to blame US attacks for their injuries. Rear Admiral Gregory J. Smith, the top military spokesperson in Kabul, then provided a statement to the Washington Post suggesting that the burns were inflicted on the children as punishment. This development is remarkably similar to events last March, when Smith initially stated after Special Forces killed two pregnant women in a night raid that the women had been slashed to death by knives before the raid took place, only for a later investigation to reveal that the Special Forces soldiers had used knives to remove the bullets that they had fired into the women.

Exclusive, on-the-ground interviews obtained by Brave New Foundation’s Rethink Afghanistan project confirm what U.S. and allied forces repeatedly denied: U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan killed dozens of people in the Sangin District of Helmand Province on July 23.

The Taliban made an audacious attack early Monday on Afghanistan’s capital city, upending recent assurances of military progress.