Over the weekend, it was revealed that the U.S. has been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups. But over the border, in Pakistan, the U.S. stated yesterday that they’ve ruled out negotiating with Al-Qaeda to free an aid worker who was kidnapped last summer.

Over the weekend, two U.S. military advisers were shot dead in their office at the Interior Ministry in Kabul, Afghanistan. The attack is one of many since U.S. troops inadvertently burned several copies of the Koran and other religious materials while clearing out the base at Bagram Air Field last Wednesday. In response to the escalating violence, Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson announced Sunday that NATO had decided to withdraw its advisors from Afghanistan. 

Detainees in prisons run by the Afghanistan National Police and the country's intelligence service are routinely abused and subjected to what a new report from the United Nations refers to as "systematic torture." The report details repeated beatings, electric shocks, the use of stress positions and the threat of sexual assault. It is unknown whether American officials were aware of or complicit in the abuse.

After many months of speculation and political pressure, President Obama layed out his plans for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last night. In a prime-time address from the White House, the president said 10,000 American would be home by year's end and 33,000 by next summer. Perhaps the most significant moment was when the president said American involvement in Afghanistan will end in 2014, when American forces turn over full security control to the Afghans. Analysts are questioning what this means for the Afghan government. 

How did five hundred or more Taliban members pull off one of the biggest prison breaks in recent memory in Kandahar, Afghanistan? If you’re thinking that it was something out of the movies, like say, Shawshank Redemption, you’re actually not far off. Ron Moreau, Newsweek’s Afghanistan and Pakistan correspondent, along with his colleague Sami Yousafzai, spoke to two Taliban members that took part in the escape. Moreau explains how they pulled it off.

On October 7th, 2001, less than a month after the attacks of September 11, American and British forces entered Afghanistan seeking to disrupt terrorist activities and capture members of al-Qaida. Nine years later we look back and reflect on one of the longest armed conflicts the U.S. has ever seen. Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs joins us for the hour.

For women in Afghanistan, day-to-day life continues to be a struggle. It has been nearly a decade since the fall of the Taliban, yet every step forward for Afghan women seems to come with new setbacks.

Though girls now have the right to an education, getting one can be perilous. Reports over the years of schools being burnt down, teachers being beaten and beheaded, and acid being thrown at girls' faces as they walk to school can obscure signs of progress being made for women, yet they are there.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and representatives from over 60 countries are meeting in Kabul today. This is the first major international conference in Afghanistan since the 1970s, and the first time Afghanistan is playing host to its major donors. Atop of the agenda: how to hand more responsibility for Afghanistan to the Afghan government. This comes at a crucial period, as American troops are expected to start leaving Afghanistan by next year. 

A conference on Afghanistan scheduled for this coming Thursday is expected to address ways that the U.S. and NATO allies might move forward on talks with the Taliban. The ideas run the gamut from striking certain Taliban leaders from a list of terror suspects to allowing the Taliban to form an above-board political party. Fotini Christia, professor of political science at MIT, joins us with her thoughts.

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah announced yesterday that he would not participate in a runoff against incumbent president Hamid Karzai, originally scheduled to take place six days from now. This morning, Afghanistan's election commission officially cancelled the election entirely.

This morning we're comparing two conflicts involving electoral politics and counterinsurgency strategies from today and over 40 years ago: Afghanistan and Vietnam. We talk with Gordon Goldstein, author of "Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam," and Fotini Christia, Afghanistan analyst and professor of Political Science at MIT.

President Obama will continue to consult with his war advisers this week about how best to move forward in Afghanistan. One question he’s reportedly been asking is, "who is our adversary in Afghanistan?" We speak with Meghan O’Sullivan, former deputy national security advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan in the George W. Bush administration. She was also involved with the political strategy around the surge in Iraq, which brought insurgents into the political process. Also talking with us is Fotini Christia, MIT professor of political science.

America's top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, submitted a strategic review yesterday to General David Petraeus and to NATO. A version of that report will land on the desk of President Obama soon. While the full text of the report hasn't been made public, what has come out is a glimpse of the general's assessment: that the current strategy in Afghanistan is not working. With us is Richard Kemp, former commander of UK forces in Afghanistan. He is author of the book "Attack State Red."

There's another school of thought that we don't hear from often: instead of a military surge, what is needed is a political surge. Fotini Christia joins the conversation -- she's an assistant professor of political science at MIT and recently returned from Afghanistan.