Our partner the BBC has gotten its hands on a secret NATO report on the state of the Taliban. It shows Pakistan's security services are directly assisting the Taliban in Afghanistan and know where senior Taliban leaders are hiding. Joining us now is Bilal Sarwary, correspondent for our partner the BBC.

Earlier this month we reported the U.S. was taking steps to talk to the Taliban in Qatar. Plans have been agreed to set up some kind of public affairs office but that move did not play well with the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai. And so he's jump-started the talks by attempting to create his own dialogue with the Taliban. 

From February 10, 2007 to September 16, 2008, retired General David Petraeus oversaw all coalition forces in Iraq. He was the mastermind behind the counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, and served as top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan until July of 2011, when he became director of the CIA. He is arguably one of the most influential military leaders in recent American history. A new biography about General Petraeus comes out this week.

While we are distracted by the circus of the GOP political race, the war continues in Afghanistan, and we have several tragic stories out of that country this morning. A NATO helicopter crashed in Afghanistan last night killing six service members. The cause is still being investigated. Also this morning. An Afghan soldier shot and killed four French troops, leading French President Nicolas Sarkozy to suspend its training programs in Afghanistan. Matt Rosenberg is a reporter for our partner The New York Times.

On Thursday a video showing four U.S. Marines purportedly urinating on the corpses of three dead Taliban fighters went viral on the internet. Defense secretary Leon Panetta called the behavior “utterly deplorable” and Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai decried the video as “completely inhumane.” The video comes at a tense time, as the U.S. tries to foster peace talks between the Taliban and Karzai's government.

On Tuesday, after months of denying it was interested in participating in formal talks to end the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban indicated it would consider opening a political office in Qatar. A political office would give mediators from the U.S. a legitimate contact for Taliban members. No details have been given about when these negotiations would begin, or what would be bargained for. This step also implies that there will continue to be some kind of Taliban presence inside Afghanistan.

A military investigation has found that the U.S. is in part responsible for killing 24 Pakistani soldiers in an errant airstrike along the Afghanistan border on November 26. The report also blames Pakistan for firing on U.S. and Afghan troops, saying the joint team returned fire in self-defense. The findings come at a time of deep mistrust between the two strategic allies. Adam Entous, national security correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, reports on the latest developments.

Afghani children can now watch their own version of "Sesame Street."  The new children’s series hit the screens across that country this month. The producers of the original American version of "Sesame Street" have partnered with two popular Afghan television stations to produce "Sesame Garden," or "Baghch-e-Simsim" in the local languages of Dari and Pashto. Like its American counterpart, "Sesame Garden," has a progressive message along the way. The show aims to challenge gender barriers and expand roles for women and girls. Show segments feature young girls going to school, and emphasize female role models in a variety of careers, including as doctors and engineers.

Suicide bombers killed at least 58 people and wounded over 100 at a shrine in Kabul on Tuesday, the holy Shiite day of Ashura. Two other attacks were carried out, killing four at a mosque in Mazar-i-Shari, and the other in Kandahar, where no one was killed. The attacks, coming on the most important day of the year for Shiite Muslims, was the incident of first sectarian violence in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. Rod Nordland, reporter for The New York Times, has the latest from Kabul.

Almost 1,000 delegates from Afghanistan, NATO, and neighboring countries met in Bonn, Germany to discuss the future of Afghanistan. The talks happened in the context of the planned withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan by 2014. The meeting had a sense of deja vu; 10 years ago, in this same city, in the same hotel, Afghan leaders met to discuss the future of Afghanistan. Back then, it was just months after the 9/11 attacks, the American-led invasion of Afghanistan, and the fall of the Taliban. 

A crucial international conference on Afghanistan’s future began Monday in Bonn, Germany. Delegates from 100 nations are attempting to chart a long term course for the war-torn country, after international troops leave in 2014. But neighboring Pakistan, crucial to Afghanistan’s security, is boycotting the conference, following a NATO attack killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Early results show that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party, United Russia, is on track to lose its two-thirds majority in the parliament's lower house.

Ten years after the first conference in Bonn, Germany on nation-building in Afghanistan, representatives from 100 countries came together Monday to chart a course for Afghanistan after NATO forces pull out in 2014. However, there were no delegates from Pakistan or the Taliban.

After getting a court order to return, police have told Occupy Wall Street protesters can return to Zuccotti Park, but cannot bring tents, tarps, or sleeping bags.

Over the weekend two attacks in Afghanistan proved some of the deadliest in that country in over two months. In Kabul, a bombing left 17 people dead, and some officials pointing beyond the Taliban and towards a growing threat: the Haqqani network, which is based in neighboring Pakistan. That and this morning's other top headlines. 

Two attacks over the weekend in Afghanistan drew into even sharper relief the challenges of relations between Pakistan and the U.S. One reason: officials pointed to the first attack, in which a suicide bombing of an armored convoy killed 17 people, as a likely calling card not of the Taliban but the Haqqani terrorist network. The Haqqani network is based largely in Pakistan, and the U.S. has accused that country of supporting them. Now, American officials are in the difficult position of asking Pakistan for help in peace negotiations with the Haqqanis.   

The increasingly fraught relationship between the United States and Pakistan is under even greater scrutiny after new revelations showing Pakistan has continually supported and trained the Taliban in Afghanistan for the last decade. A BBC investigation alleges that Pakistan has secretly armed and trained the enemy in Afghanistan while professing to be a U.S. ally. David Loyn, correspondent for the BBC, filed this report.

The BBC has learned that the British government paid £3.2 million AGEF, an aid agency which has shuttered over allegations of fraud. AGEF's mission was to help resettle failed asylum-seekers sent back to Kabul and to train local people. The British government was aware of problems since 2009, according to the BBC, but continued to pay AGEF until this year. Angus Crawford, correspondent for the BBC, filed this report.

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.

Todaymarks ten years since the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan began — a milestone many people may not have imagined the U.S. would reach. For soldiers, the anniversary is cause for reflection. Special Forces Major Fernando M. Luján made his reflections public last week, in an op-ed in The New York Times called "This War Can Still Be Won." Luján, who was stationed in Afghanistan for 14 months, and is now a member of the Afghan Hands program, says "the Afghans have the will to win, with or without us."