Sami Yousafzai

Not long before word spread of the Taliban leader's passing, reporter Sami Yousafzai received an unexpected phone call.

Members of the Afghan army and police are selling American weapons and ammo to the Taliban.

And as the bloody war continues, some of their foot soldiers along the Pakistani border aren't happy about it.

A high-level fighter accuses his fellow militants of going soft—and engineers a schism that could have major consequences for Afghanistan.

Frustrated by corrupt and plodding government courts, Afghans are turning to Islamic judges.

An unorthodox play for Afghan hearts and minds.

Afghanistan's first female rapper refuses to be silenced. 
By Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau

More trouble than ever is brewing, not only in Afghanistan but across the border in Pakistan too. Even the Taliban are worried.

Why are so many Afghan soldiers turning their guns on the Americans? And can they be stopped?

He helped lead America to bin Laden. Now he rots in a Pakistani prison.

A year after the Abbottabad raid, al Qaeda's mastermind is still loose. Bin Laden's death has only made the hunt harder.

Will the Taliban survive talking with the Americans? Many fighters say no.

He helped take down bin Laden. Now he could be hanged for it.

A young jihadist returns to his former unit on the Afghan border and finds only the desperate remnants of bin Laden's once-dreaded organization.

She was a national hero—and some powerful men didn't like that.

Afghanistan: Ten years of war in a land where your enemy will fight you forever.

As a new fighting season heats up in Afghanistan, here's a quick guide to 12 of the most-hunted insurgent commanders on the front lines.

Disgusted by the insurgency's relentless brutality, more than 1,000 fighters have walked away in recent months.

Appearing to answer U.S. calls for greater toughness against Taliban networks operating on their border, Pakistan this week arrested the son of feared insurgent leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani, according to Taliban and Pakistani government sources.

'The New York Times' only scratched the surface in last week's report that Iranian officials have delivered bags of cash worth millions of dollars to President Hamid Karzai's chief of staff, Umar Daudzai. Karzai confirmed that story but dismissed concerns about corruption.

Ilyas Kashmiri, 46, has the experience, the connections, and a determination to attack the West—including the United States—that make him the most dangerous Qaeda operative to emerge in years.

Senior Afghan Taliban chiefs flatly deny recent reports that insurgent leaders have sent secret peace feelers to Kabul. "How many times do we have to tell you there's nothing going on?" asks a senior member of the ruling council, the Quetta Shura. The reports, he tells NEWSWEEK, are disinformation aimed at weakening Taliban resolve. "This is just very obvious propaganda," he says, adding that no one of any importance has met with President Hamid Karzai's representatives.

Al Qaeda is achieving a longtime dream: to assemble a force of trained jihadis who hold Western passports.

Taliban sources in Afghanistan say jihadist allies from Central Asia have started heading home. Though the exodus is being encouraged by relentless American drone attacks against the fighters' back bases in Pakistan's tribal areas, it's not necessarily good news.

Intelligence agencies have stepped up drone attacks in Waziristan, but the Taliban say they're still plotting a big attack on the West. Chatter from satellite terrorist networks in Iraq and Africa suggests they might be right.

Even before any Qurans have been torched, Islamic extremist leaders are fanning the flames of the controversy, taking advantage of a propaganda windfall. Afghan insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the U.S. has labeled as a terrorist, issued a statement this week saying the Quran burning is "part of the American war against Muslims."

Nine years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden's network remains a shadowy, little-understood enemy. The truth, as revealed by one of its fighters, is both more and less troubling than we think.

Taliban officials know it's sacrilegious to hope a mosque will not be built, but that's exactly what they're wishing for: the success of the fiery campaign to block the proposed Islamic cultural center and prayer room near the site of the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan. "By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor," Taliban operative Zabihullah tells NEWSWEEK. (Like many Afghans, he uses a single name.) "It's providing us with more recruits, donations, and...

Afghans are furious that their embassy in Washington threw a decadent, boozy Western party during Ramadan. Thing is, it didn't. But swift and outraged reaction says volumes about the divisions in Afghan society.

No one's heard from the Taliban leader in almost nine years. Now his absence is exposing dangerous fault lines within the insurgency.