"The United States and Nato formally ended their war in Afghanistan on Sunday with a ceremony at their military headquarters in Kabul. The insurgency they fought for 13 years, however, remains as ferocious and deadly as at any time since the 2001 invasion that unseated the Taliban regime following the 11 September attacks," the Guardian writes.
"The ceremony marked the end of the US-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), which will transition to a supporting role with 13,500 soldiers, most of them American, starting on 1 January," the article reads.
General John Campbell, commander of Isaf, rolled up and sheathed the green and white Isaf flag and unfurled the flag of the new international mission, called Resolute Support, the newspaper informs.
“Resolute Support will serve as the bedrock of an enduring partnership” between Nato and Afghanistan, Campbell told an audience of Afghan and international military officers and officials, as well as diplomats and journalists. He paid tribute to the international and Afghan troops who have died fighting the insurgency, saying: “The road before us remains challenging but we will triumph.”
"A high school student who was jailed after he was accused of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was released from custody on Friday after his arrest caused an uproar. The 16-year-old boy was arrested this week after being accused of calling Mr. Erdogan a thief at a student rally," the New York Times writes.
"Opposition parties denounced it as the latest example of the government’s descent toward authoritarianism and its crackdown on free speech and dissent. It is a crime in Turkey to insult the president, and others have been arrested on such charges before, but it was the first time a minor has been detained," the newspaper informs.
"Dozens of lawyers volunteered to defend the teenager and petitioned for his release. The Justice Ministry will have to decide whether to allow the case to go forward," the New York Times writes.
The Washington Post published an article headlined "The U.S. and Iran are aligned in Iraq against the Islamic State — for now."
"Iranian military involvement has dramatically increased in Iraq over the past year as Tehran has delivered desperately needed aid to Baghdad in its fight against Islamic State militants, say U.S., Iraqi and Iranian sources. In the eyes of Obama administration officials, equally concerned about the rise of the brutal Islamist group, that’s an acceptable role — for now," the article reads.
"Yet as U.S. troops return to a limited mission in Iraq, American officials remain apprehensive about the potential for renewed friction with Iran, either directly or via Iranian-backed militias that once attacked U.S. personnel on a regular basis," the authors of the article write.
"A senior Iranian cleric with close ties to Tehran’s leadership, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, said that since the Islamic State’s capture of much of northern Iraq in June, Iran has sent more than 1,000 military advisers to Iraq, as well as elite units, and has conducted airstrikes and spent more than $1 billion on military aid," the article reads.
“The areas that have been liberated from Daesh have been thanks to Iran’s advice, command, leaders and support,” the cleric said, using the Arabic acronym for the group.
"Ali Khedery, who advised several U.S. ambassadors in Iraq, said the tensions that fueled a U.S.-Iran confrontation in Iraq after 2003 are masked by the shared desire to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS," the authors write.
