NewsTracker Answers for week of May 07, 2012

Q: President Barack Obama last week made a surprise visit to Afghanistan to sign a "strategic partnership agreement" pledging support for the Asian nation after the U.S. ends combat operations in 2014. Where is Afghanistan on this map?

Circle the area on this map

Q: President Obama met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the Afghanistan's capital of . .

A. Afghan

B. Islamabad

C. Kabul

D. New Delhi

C. Kabul is over 3,500 years old, and many empires long fought over the area for its strategic location along the trade routes of South and Central Asia.

Q: President Obama's visit took place on the anniversary of the U.S. raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in neighboring Pakistan, which is . . .

A. South and east of Afghanistan

B. North of Afghanistan

C. West of Afghanistan

A. Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan in the south and the east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast. The conflict in Afghanistan frequently has spilled over into Pakistan.

Q: The war in Afghanistan is the United States' longest running major war. When did it start?

A. 1978

B. 1996

C. 2001

D. 2003

C. The war began in October 2001 in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The United States identified members of al-Qaeda, an organization based in Afghanistan and allied with the Taliban government, as the perpetrators of the attacks.

Q: In the first phase of the war, most of the Taliban leadership fled to Pakistan from Kabul. But, U.S. troops and their allies have been fighting insurgent Taliban forces ever since. What is the name of the western alliance backing the Afghan government?

A. The Axis

B. NATO

C. The Entente

D. Warsaw Pact

B. NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has 28 member states across North America and Europe. Afghan troops are supposed to take over all security duties from NATO by the end of 2014.