About $1 million provided by the CIA to a secret Afghan government fund ended up in the hands of al Qaeda in 2010 when it was used to pay a ransom for an Afghan diplomat, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's nominee for agriculture minister in the new cabinet is on an Interpol wanted list for tax evasion in Estonia, a fact Ghani's spokesman said was unknown to his office at the time of his nomination.
The United States has handed to Pakistan three prisoners including a senior Taliban militant held in Afghanistan, as Washington rushes to empty its Afghan prison before losing the legal right to detain people there at the end of the year.
Afghanistan inaugurates its first new president in a decade on Monday, swearing in technocrat Ashraf Ghani to head a power-sharing government just as the withdrawal of most foreign troops presents a crucial test.
