Washington being Washington, the expectation is that books born in this city should focus on matters of high policy. On that front, Prudence Bushnell’s account of the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya—and that of its counterpart in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania—on Aug. 7, 1998, does not disappoint. Indeed, her book, Terrorism, Betrayal, and Resilience: My Story of the 1998 U.S. Embassy Bombings, raises important questions about how the Washington policy establishment missed the clues that might have allowed it to foresee, and possibly prevent...

Peaceniks in Afghanistan heaved a sigh of relief, with subdued optimism, when in November last year Col Chris Kolenda, an Afghan war veteran, boarded a Doha-bound plane, along with Robin Raphel for a dialogue with the Talibans – an experimental diplomacy sans formality, aimed at termination of the 17-year war in Afghanistan, a disastrous gamble for the US. Hi-fi strategic and diplomatic experts in the US, who ridiculed the move, have now chosen a disquieting quietitude as the effort bears distinct signs of an unprecedented triumph. Although the move was never...

When Afghans cast ballots Saturday in parliamentary elections viewed as a crucial test run for the presidential vote, it will be a shrinking number of voters that braves the tide of Taliban and Islamic State violence. For the first time since a U.S.-led invasion forced the Taliban from power in 2001, elections won't be held across Afghanistan. Residents of an entire province won't go to the polls because the country's security forces can't protect polling stations there. Ghazni, the seventh most populous of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces at 1.3 million people, won’t be the only disenfranchised area. After...

A gap is growing between Washington and Seoul over an inter-Korean military pact that Washington worries might weaken South Korea’s defenses against a North Korea attack. South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed discontent when she spoke to him after Seoul outlined plans to sign a military agreement with Pyongyang at the third inter-Korean summit in September. Pompeo’s concern over Seoul’s military agreement with Pyongyang comes as relations cool between South Korea and the United States...

Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in eight years suffered from violence and chaos Saturday, with a multitude of attacks killing at least 3 people, key election workers failing to show up and many polling stations staying open hours later than scheduled to handle long lines of voters. Problems surrounding the elections — already three years overdue — threaten to compromise the credibility of polls which an independent monitoring group said were also marred by incidences of ballot stuffing and intimidation by armed men affiliated with candidates in 19 of...

Despite a shroud of violence and voting delays, more than 4 million Afghans cast their ballots in parliamentary elections last weekend, according to the country’s election commission. Afghans waited, often in long lines, to vote for 249 seats in the lower house of parliament, up for grabs for the first time in eight years. More than 2,500 candidates, including 417 women, vied for those seats. But violence leading up to the vote shook the nation, included the shooting death of Kandahar province’s police chief, Gen. Abdul Raziq, by one of his own guards. Ten candidates also...

Amid high tension and tight security, tens of thousands of voters lined up Saturday across southern Kandahar province, where polling in Afghan parliamentary elections was held one week late after the provincial police chief was assassinated in a shooting claimed by the Taliban. By late afternoon, no insurgent attacks or other violence were reported at more than 1,100 polling stations, where about half a million voters had registered to choose among 111 candidates competing for 11 legislative seats. Many voting sites opened late or suffered from...