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Actor Nick Stahl resurfaces in email, plans rehab

Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images file

Actor Nick Stahl, shown at the premiere of New Films Cinema’s “Burning Palms” on Jan. 12, 2011, in Los Angeles resurfaced in an email about a week after his wife, Rose Stahl, reported him missing.

Nick Stahl has resurfaced virtually following his disappearance more than a week ago.

While the 33-year-old “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” star still hasn’t reunited with his family or friends, E! News has confirmed Stahl reached out to friends via email Friday to let them know he’s OK.

And that wasn’t all.

According to a source, Stahl apologized for “worrying everyone” and said he wanted to get help and that he was planning to seek treatment at a rehabilitation facility.

“I am so relieved and happy he got in contact and he’s OK,” Stahl’s wife, Rose Murphy Stahl, told E! News.

Nick still has yet to contact his wife, who reported the actor missing on May 14.

“I want my husband to come home,” Rose told E! News Friday. “He is an amazing father and we miss him.”

Stahl’s is also known for other roles in in movies and TV including “Disturbing Behavior,” “Sin City,” “Mirrors 2,” “In the Bedroom,” “Carnivale,” and “House of Lies.”

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@ May 20, 2012

Close call: Airplane lands on busy Florida street

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COOPER CITY, Fla. — A small plane made an emergency landing on a busy Florida street on Saturday afternoon, officials said.

A 1965 Mooney landed on Sheridan Street near Douglas Road around noon after an engine problem, according to the Pembroke Pines Police Department. The aircraft was making its way to the North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines, officials said.

The pilot and the passengers were not injured but the plane’s wings were clipped when it ran into some trees, police said.

See photo, read the original report at NBCMiami.com

“It’s a good day when an aircraft can land on a roadway anywhere, but especially on Sheridan Street, in the weather and the traffic that was out here and end up with no injuries,” said Tom Gallagher, public information officer for Pembroke Pines Fire Rescue.

Authorities said the four-seater aircraft was coming down the eastbound lanes that were clear at the time. Once traffic began moving on the street, though, the pilot moved the plane to the median where it struck some trees, officials said.

“I was shopping at Publix and I saw the plane coming down and thought, whoah, that’s freaky,” said resident Steve Romney.

The plane was coming from Georgia, according to police. The last-minute landing shut down the eastbound lanes for hours as authorities worked to clear out the plane.

“It could have been catastrophic. The pilot used a lot of skill, he was evaluating the air space and his landing area on his way down,” Gallagher said.

The incident remains under investigation.

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@ May 20, 2012

6 Georgia school buses crash; dozens hurt

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COVINGTON, Ga. — A chain reaction crash Saturday involved six school buses full of children heading for a Six Flags amusement park outside Atlanta, officials said.

The 11 a.m. crash on Interstate 20 trapped the driver of one bus from Burke County Middle School in Waynesboro. After emergency crews cut her from the wreckage, Angela Anthony, 44, from Midville, Ga., was airlfited to an Atlanta-area hospital, Lt. Tyrone Oliver, Newton County Sheriff spokesman, told NBC station WXIA of Atlanta.

Sixty-one students were treated at Newton County Medical Center for minor injuries, WXIA said. All were expected to be sent home by the end of the day.

“At mile marker 98, just west of the Georgia Highway 11 exit, traffic began slowing for a lane closure about a half mile ahead,” Georgia State Patrol spokesman Gordy Wright told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “As the buses slowed, one bus struck the rear of another, setting off a chain-reaction crash. The passenger car was the last vehicle in the line and struck the rear of the sixth bus.”

A Burke County school official told The Associated Press that the children suffered nothing more than a few bruises and scrapes.

At one point, all westbound lanes and one eastbound lane were closed. They have since reopened.

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@ May 20, 2012

Thunder roll in 4th, push Lakers to brink

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Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

LOS ANGELES – Kevin Durant stood above the 3-point line and watched the shot clock dwindle in the final seconds of Game 4. When Metta World Peace backed up slightly on defense, Durant hesitated only an instant before launching a 26-footer.

“It left my hand, (and) I was thinking, `If this doesn’t go in, it’s going to be a terrible shot,”‘ Durant said.

The three-time scoring champ trusts his instincts and his silky-smooth jumper. Neither let him down while he and Russell Westbrook engineered yet another late comeback that pushed a frustrated Kobe Bryant to the brink.

Westbrook scored 10 of his 37 points during a stirring fourth-quarter rally, Durant added 31 points and hit that tiebreaking 3-pointer with 13.7 seconds left, and the Thunder seized control of their second-round series with a 103-100 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday night.

Serge Ibaka scored 14 points and the second-seeded Thunder took a 3-1 series lead with a rally from a 13-point deficit in the final 8 minutes, moving one win away from their second straight trip to the Western Conference finals.

“Everybody kept fighting,” Westbrook said. “We all believed in each other. It’s the playoffs. You can’t afford to sit back and wonder about it.”

Game 5 is Monday night in Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma City improved to 7-1 in the postseason with a tenacious rally on the second night of back-to-back games against the Lakers and Bryant, who scored 38 points but struggled in the fourth quarter of Los Angeles’ fifth loss in seven games. After Durant put the Thunder ahead with his shot-clock-draining 3-pointer, Kobe couldn’t match it with 10 seconds left.

With a surge that seemed inevitable to the Lakers’ worried crowd, Durant and Westbrook led the Thunder back with teamwork throughout a 32-point fourth quarter. Bryant was left lamenting the help he didn’t get – particularly from four-time All-Star Pau Gasol, who made the unforced turnover that led to Durant’s decisive 3.

NBA playoffsLucy Nicholson / Reuters

Thunder and Lightning

PBT: While Russell Westbrook was racking up 37 points and rallying the Thunder from a 13-point deficit, Kevin Durant waited patiently before burying the Lakers in Oklahoma City’s 103-100 Game 4 win.

“Pau has got to be more aggressive,” Bryant said of Gasol, who managed just 10 points and five rebounds while committing three turnovers. “He’s got to be aggressive, got to shoot the ball, drive to the basket, and he will next game. … (The turnover was) just a bad read on Pau’s part. It happens.”

The Thunder finished Game 4 on a 22-8 run, punctuated by Durant’s dramatic 3-pointer and two late free throws from James Harden, who had 12 points. After sweeping Dallas in the first round, the Thunder are one win away from sending home the NBA’s last two champions – and in perhaps the greatest measure of the Thunder’s growth over the two years since the Lakers ushered them out of the first round on the way to their second straight title, nobody seems surprised.

“We know no game is over,” Durant said. “We’ve witnessed that before. We play hard every possession and live with the results, and we came out on top.”

Andrew Bynum had 18 points and nine rebounds for the Lakers, who led 92-81 with 7:45 to play before Westbrook went to work with a furious series of drives to the hoop. The UCLA product scored nine points in just over 2 minutes, and Kendrick Perkins capped the 17-4 run on a putback layup with 1:16 left, putting Oklahoma City up 98-96 with its first lead since the first quarter.

After Bryant evened it with two free throws, Westbrook and Pau Gasol then traded turnovers, with Durant swiping Gasol’s careless pass before burying a straightaway 3-pointer that silenced Staples Center. The Thunder made 10 of their 15 shots in the final period.

“I wish I could sit up here and say how that happened,” Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks said. “It just happened.”

World Peace had 14 points in the second game of the Lakers’ first back-to-back playoff games in 13 years. A night after the Lakers got back in the series with a late comeback for a 99-96 victory in Game 3, Los Angeles led for most of the night, but couldn’t execute on offense late, struggling for even difficult shots.

“We can talk about us offensively, because we had some struggles,” Lakers coach Mike Brown said. “But it comes down to those guys scoring 32 points in the fourth quarter, and I thought they did that very easily. That’s the most disappointing thing.”

more photos

The game was the third NBA playoff contest in 27 hours at Staples Center, which will host six playoff games in hockey and basketball over a four-day stretch this weekend. With the Los Angeles Kings’ ice just below the Lakers’ court, several players appeared to slip and slide on the floor during the game, and Westbrook nearly did the splits at the halftime buzzer when his right foot slipped.

“I was a little stiff, but we needed this win,” Westbrook said.

Oklahoma City appeared to be unhappy with the floor’s condition, but Staples Center did nothing different in its changeover, and the referees deemed the floor safe for play. The San Antonio Spurs, on course to meet the Thunder in the conference finals, didn’t appear worried about the floor during their win over the Clippers.

Bryant shot poorly in the first three games of the series, but went 10 for 18 in the first three quarters of Game 4 before managing only a 2-of-10 effort in the fourth, including a meaningless bucket at the buzzer.

“We’re all upset and extremely frustrated, (but) I don’t think anybody is worried about going into Oklahoma City and getting a win,” Bryant said. “We don’t think about winning three in a row.”

Jordan Hill’s offensive rebound and layup put the Lakers up 91-78 with 8 minutes left, but longtime Lakers guard Derek Fisher kick-started Oklahoma City’s comeback with a 3-pointer.

After Oklahoma City defended its home court with a blowout win in the opener and a comeback from a seven-point deficit in the final 2 minutes of Game 2, the Lakers finally answered Friday night with their own late rally. Los Angeles took control of Game 4 early on while the Thunder struggled with their shots and their footing.

Westbrook slipped near midcourt at the halftime buzzer, his right foot sliding forward when he attempted to stop. He stayed down on the court for an uncomfortably long moment before walking gingerly to the locker room with his hand on his left hip, but got treatment at halftime and returned for the third quarter.

The game was Chapter 4 in the four-day extravaganza at Staples Center. The Kings play Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against Phoenix on Sunday afternoon, followed by the Clippers’ fourth game against San Antonio – all while tens of thousands of fans gather outside to watch the Tour of California, the nation’s largest cycling race, which finishes on the street outside shortly before the Kings’ opening faceoff.

Notes: The Lakers hadn’t played back-to-back postseason games since the second round in 1999, another season shortened by labor strife. … Westbrook and Perkins were called for technical fouls for angry reactions to contact with the Lakers’ point guards. … Denzel Washington, Allyson Felix and Michelle Kwan attended the game.

More newsLucy Nicholson / ReutersLucy Nicholson / Reuters

PBT: Westbrook’s thunder, KD’s lightning bury LA

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@ May 20, 2012

Chinese dissident in US: Promote China justice

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Keith Bedford / Reuters

Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, center, is helped by his wife, Yuan Weijing, right, after arriving in New York on Saturday.

Blind social activist Chen Guangcheng is starting a new life of freedom in the U.S. NBC’s Michelle Franzen reports.

Updated at 11:15 p.m. ET: Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States on Saturday after China allowed him to leave a hospital in Beijing in a move that could end a diplomatic tussle between the two countries, NBC News reported.

Chen’s escape from house arrest in northeastern China last month and subsequent stay in the U.S. Embassy was a huge embarrassment for China and led to a diplomatic rift while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was visiting Beijing for talks to improve ties between the world’s two biggest economies.

A United Airlines plane carrying Chen, his wife and two children, landed in at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday, said NBC News’ Bo Gu, who was on board the flight.

During his flight out of China, Chen told Gu that he had to escape because his health was deteriorating quickly. He had a cast on his right leg but said he is recovering from an injury sustained during his escape.

He said he believes China’s central government is good-willed and all the evil done to him and his family was by the Shandong authorities. He said he hopes the central government will investigate.

Chen was promised he could return to China anytime he wants, he told Gu. He said his children were not happy to leave China, though.

He also said he is concerned about his nephew, charged with attempted murder for injuring officials who broke into his house on the night Chen escaped.

He expressed concern that “acts of retribution may not have abated” in his hometown. The village of Dongshigu, where Chen’s mother and other relatives remain, is still under lockdown.

Chen said after going on to New York that he was gratified the Chinese government had been dealing with his situation with “restraint and calm,” Reuters reported.

“I hope to see that they continue to open discourse and earn the respect and trust of the people,” Chen, speaking through a translator, told reporters outside a New York University housing building in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood.

“I’m very grateful for the assistance of the American Embassy and also (for) receiving a promise from the Chinese government for protection of my rights as a citizen over the long term,” he said. “I believe that the promise from the central government is sincere and they are not lying to me.”

“I believe that no matter how difficult the environment nothing is impossible as long as you put your heart to it … I hope everybody works with me to promote justice and fairness in China,” he said. “Equality and justice have no boundaries.”

Chen is going to study as a fellow at the NYU School of Law, the institution said Saturday.

Earlier: Blind Chinese activist Chen leaves Beijing on flight to US

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@ May 20, 2012

1st tropical storm strengthens off Carolinas

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MIAMI — A tropical storm watch was issued for the South Carolina coast after Alberto formed on Saturday, bringing an early start to the Atlantic hurricane season.

Tropical Storm Alberto had maximum sustained winds at 50 mph. At 11 p.m. EDT, Alberto was centered about 110 miles south of Charleston and 155 miles east of Savannah, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was moving southwest at about 6 mph.

An earlier report from a ship near the storm’s center had put maximum sustained winds at 60 mph, the Hurricane Center said.

A tropical storm watch was in effect from the Savannah River south to the South Santee River. The Hurricane Center advised people on the coast from Georgia to North Carolina’s Outer Banks to monitor Alberto’s progress.

Alberto had been forecast to make a slow loop during the next few days and then turn northeast, making its way along the U.S. mid-Atlantic seaboard before dissipating in about five days.

“A slow southwestward motion is expected to continue through Sunday,” the Hurricane Center stated. “A turn toward the west-northeast and then toward the north and northeast is expected by Monday.”

“Some strengthening is possible over the next day or so,” it added.

The season officially runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, but storms outside that time frame are not uncommon.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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@ May 20, 2012

Forget protests: NATO problem is Afghanistan

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WASHINGTON — When NATO nations meet in Chicago on Sunday, one question will top the agenda: What happens in Afghanistan when US combat troops leave?

To be sure, some troops from NATO countries, led by the United States, will likely stay behind after 2014 – both to train Afghans and act as a hedge against the Taliban‘s return. The summit will try to iron out some of those details.

But perhaps even more crucial – certainly for Afghanistan itself – is the question of who will foot the bill for Afghans to protect themselves. Afghanistan does not have remotely enough money to defend itself. Left alone, it could afford to pay about 30,000 soldiers and police officers. Currently, with international aid, it has more than 300,000 – a number that some experts say is too low.

As a result, much of the Chicago summit will be a passing of the hat for Afghanistan. With NATO countries war-weary and economically strapped, the commitments may not exactly fill that cup to overflowing.

It points to a NATO role in Afghanistan that will continue for years after the end of the international combat mission in 2014, but at a much-reduced and still uncertain level. And it suggests that for all the heady words spoken by NATO leaders, funding and troop pledges for an event still two years away are likely to remain vague.

The two-day meeting “will be something of a tin-cup exercise and should give us some idea of what the [NATO] coalition countries’ post-2014 commitments to Afghanistan will look like,” says Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

In a clear reflection of this reduced commitment to Afghanistan, the gathering is expected to endorse the scaling back of the Afghan National Security Forces. Army and national police forces once envisioned to hover around 350,000 personnel for years after NATO’s departure are now seen as gradually scaling back to something over 200,000 by 2018.

“The idea is to gradually reduce the size of the Afghan forces to make them more affordable,” says James Dobbins, a former US Afghanistan envoy and now director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corp. in Arlington, Va.

US share: about $2 billion per year

Pre-summit discussions among NATO countries resulted in a consensus that foresees the US picking up “the largest part of the cost,” Ambassador Dobbins says, with other countries making up the rest. That US share is expected to be about $2 billion a year, with other countries making up the difference of an annual bill of about $4 billion.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has indicated that he doesn’t think the $4 billion will be enough. During the recent surge, the US was spending about $100 billion a year to maintain its force of 100,000 troops.

Dobbins says he expects the pledges at Chicago to remain general, in part because countries are reluctant to make specific funding commitments for what is still a few years off. Moreover, NATO nations are concerned that promised gains in Afghanistan have not panned out.

“The thinking was that the US surge would kick the stuffing out of the Taliban, they would thus be on the road to defeat, and we’d be handing off a much simpler job,” says Stephen Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “Instead, in 2015 we’ll be handing off a stalemate and a war that in fact is not going to be ending anytime soon.”

The reluctance to pledge long-term commitments to Afghanistan extends to the US as well. Some members of Congress are already warning that there is likely to be a dwindling appetite for picking up a $2 billion annual check for the Afghan security forces after 2014 – even as the White House counters that the price tag is a small fraction of the $88 billion the Pentagon expects to spend in Afghanistan in 2013.

Yet even if NATO countries stick to vague commitments, which will be enough to satisfy the modest goal the US has set for Chicago, regional experts say, the US wants to make a decade-long commitment to troop levels and funding in Afghanistan, and it wants to make sure it is not left on its own.

“What [the US wants] is for NATO to endorse that” general commitment, says David Pollock, a former State Department planning staff official now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. But with national budgets tight and with “people convinced that Afghanistan’s long-term success is a long shot,” he says that “at best [the US] will get a statement of long-term goals – without any long-term commitments.”

‘We’ll be handing off a stalemate’

President Obama wanted to signal this long-term commitment by signing the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) in Kabul, Afghanistan, this month.

“That was definitely a setup for the NATO summit, to underline the message that ‘the US has done its part, so now you, too, should stand up,’ ” Dobbins says.

But some analysts doubt that the agreement, which is short on specific US commitments to Afghanistan, will have any impact on the summit.

“The US having failed to sign the SPA by Chicago would have been seriously problematic, but the converse doesn’t hold, largely because it commits people to so little,” Mr. Biddle says.

What could come from Chicago is a concrete decision formally to shift NATO’s mission from combat to training ahead of schedule – in 2013. That transition has already been taking place, Biddle notes, but formalizing it and suggesting that the conditions exist to speed it up could create the perception that NATO is in the mopping-up phase, placating voters and giving NATO members political cover to stay involved a little longer.

“The beauty of changing the mission is that it leaves the political top cover for the allies to stay,” Biddle says.

No aura of ‘mission accomplished’

Such a maneuver could become even more of an imperative after the election to the French presidency of François Hollande, who promised to have French troops out of Afghanistan by around the end of this year.

Whatever is agreed to in Chicago, no one expects the aura of “mission accomplished” that permeated Mr. Obama’s brief mission to Kabul.

Afghanistan: 5 areas of concern after the US leaves

Many of America’s NATO partners want little to do with Afghanistan, but they also want to stay on the good side of the US and to keep the US committed to the alliance. The result is that coalition countries are likely to come through eventually with commitments, but they will be modest and have more to do with maintaining good relations with the US than with Afghanistan.

NATO countries “will calculate that they can scale down, because they can stay on our good side practically without being” in Afghanistan, says the Washington Institute’s Mr. Pollock. Vague talk of long-term commitments aside, he adds, “the drift is to quietly close this chapter in NATO’s history.”

This article, “NATO summit: Who will foot the bill for long-term Afghanistan security?,” first appeared at CSMonitor.com.

© 2012 The Christian Science Monitor

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@ May 20, 2012

Facebook’s Zuckerberg marries sweetheart

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PALO ALTO, Calif. — Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg updated his status to “married” on Saturday.

Zuckerberg and 27-year-old Priscilla Chan tied the knot at a small ceremony at his Palo Alto, Calif., home, capping a busy week for the couple, according to a guest authorized to speak for the couple. The person spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

Zuckerberg took his company public in one of the most anticipated stock offerings in Wall Street history Friday. And Chan graduated from medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, on Monday, the same day Zuckerberg turned 28, the person said.

The couple met at Harvard and have been together for more than nine years, the person said.

Zuckerberg designed the ring featuring “a very simple ruby,” according to the person who gave the following characterization of the wedding.

Facebook’s IPO fails to live up to the hype

The ceremony took place in Zuckerberg’s backyard before fewer than 100 guests, who all thought they were there to celebrate Chan’s graduation.

Guests ate family style from the couple’s favorite Palo Alto restaurants, Palo Alto Sol and Fuki Sushi. Desert was L.A. Burdick chocolate “mice,” which the couple had on their first date, said the person.

Even after the IPO, Zuckerberg remains Facebook’s single largest shareholder, with 503.6 million shares. And he controls the company with 56 percent of its voting stock.

The site, which was born in a dorm room eight years ago, has grown into a worldwide network of almost a billion people.

Zuckerberg founded Facebook at Harvard in 2004.

He was named as Time’s Person of the Year in 2010, at age 26.

Zuckerberg grew up in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.

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@ May 20, 2012

Fatal 6.0-magnitude quake hits near Bologna, Italy

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Stringer / Italy / Reuters

A woman carries her belongings in Finale Emilia on Sunday after a strong earthquake rocked a large swathe of northern Italy.

Updated 6:25 a.m. ET: A strong earthquake rocked a large swathe of northern Italy early on Sunday, killing at least four people, injuring dozens and seriously damaging historic buildings such as churches, bell towers and a medieval castle.

The 6.0-magnitude quake was centered 22 miles north-northwest of Bologna in northern Italy at a relatively shallow depth of 6.3 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey website. It struck at about 4 a.m. local time and was followed about an hour later by one of 5.1 magnitude, according to the USGS. A 4.2 quake had occurred a few hours earlier.

“I ran out in my underwear,” one man told Italian television.

The epicentre of the quake, the strongest to hit Italy in three years, was in the plains near Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of the Po river valley, and the tremor was felt as far west as Liguria, bordering France, and the Friuli region bordering Slovenia.

The roof of the cathedral in Mirandola collapsed. “Our school children were to receive their first communion here this morning. If it had happened then it would have been a disaster,” the local priest said.

Also badly damaged was the 14th century Estense Castle in the town of San Felice Sul Panaro.

The tops of several of the smaller towers of the famous medieval castle, the town’s biggest attraction, collapsed and there were fears that the main tower could crumble. Three of the town’s churches were severely damaged.

One person, believed to be a Moroccan man working a night shift in a polyester factory, died when he was hit by falling debris, and two men, also on the night shift, were killed when part of a modern ceramics factory made of steel collapsed in the town of Sant’ Agostino.

“He wasn’t supposed to be there. He changed shifts with a friend who wanted to go to the beach,” the mother of one of the victims told state television.

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The lifeless body of a fourth victim was spotted under rubble in another factory.

Italian journalists reported that a 103 year old woman died of heart-attack.

Gashes, cracks, gas leaks
The quake left a large hole and gashes in the side of the Sant’ Agostino town hall, which officials said was in danger of total collapse. Gas was also leaking in the town.

“I am 83 and I have never felt anything like this,” said Lina Gardenghi, a resident of Bondeno, the town where one of the workers was killed.

Two other people, one of them a German woman, were reported to have died after suffering heart attacks because of the quake, and several dozen people suffered minor injuries.

Rescue workers were checking reports that other people were buried under rubble and were preparing to house those whose homes had been damaged or destroyed.

There was serious damage to historic buildings and churches in the provinces of Modena and Ferrara, and the quake also shook major towns such as Bologna, Rovigo, Verona and Mantua.

A series of strong aftershocks hit the area, the strongest measuring 5.1, and local mayors ordered residents to stay in the open.

The last major quake to hit Italy was a 6.3 magnitude quake in the central city of L’Aquila in 2009, which killed nearly 300 people.

After that quake, then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi moved a G8 meeting that was to have been held in Sardinia to near L’Aquila in a show of solidarity with the victims.

This article includes reporting by NBC News, msbnc.com staff and Reuters.

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@ May 20, 2012

Report: Taliban, Afghan troops forge agreements

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Members of the Afghan army are forging secret alliances with the Taliban, threatening to undermine the ability of Afghan authorities to maintain control just as NATO troops prepare to hand over power to the country’s security forces, Britain’s Sunday Times reported.

In Ghazni province an hour from capital Kabul, Afghan army lieutenant Mohammad Wali admitted to the newspaper that he and a local Taliban commander were working together. (The Sunday Times operates behind a paywall)

“We lost seven men in an ambush when I first arrived at the base,” Wali, who commands 18 men, told The Times. “So I thought, why risk my life when there’s another way?”

The two share intelligence about military operations and plan to loot Nato supply convoys and divide-up the proceeds, the newspaper reported.

Wali told the newspaper that he met the local Taliban chief in a bazaar, where the two agreed a ceasefire and plans to ambush NATO convoys on the Kabul-Kandahar highway.

“The plan is simple,” Wali told the newspaper. “When the Taliban attack the convoys we stay in our bases. If the Taliban capture something valuable then they share it with us later.”

Local Taliban commander Mohammad Hassan told The Times that he had hit dozens of convoys in this way.

Forget protests: NATO summit’s problem is Afghanistan

Around 20 percent of NATO supply convoys come under attack in Afghanistan, the newspaper reported. NATO and the government of President Hamid Karzai have down-played down the significance of such ceasefires and informal agreements, it added.

Violence erupted in Kabul just hours after President Obama’s visit to Afghanistan where he signed a peace deal with the country’s president, Hamid Karzai. Rick Tyler of the pro-Newt Gingrich Super PAC, Politico’s Maggie Haberman, The Hill’s Karen Finney, and The New York Times Magazine’s Hugo Lindgren discuss US ties with Afghanistan.

However, at least one recently returned officer said such agreements seemed to be commonplace.

“In almost every combat outpost I visited, troopers reported to me they had intercepted radio or other traffic between (Afghan forces) and local Taliban making mini non-aggression deals,” Lt. Col. Daniel Davis told the newspaper.

NYT: US-led imperative in peril as trained Afghans turn enemy

In its own internal assessments, NATO acknowledged that that there has been a “conspicuous increase” in intelligence indicating cooperation between the Nato-trained Afghan security and the Taliban, according to the newspaper.

The Pentagon has said that the performance of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are key to the success of the handover.

“The ANSF, now responsible for leading security for almost half of Afghanistan’s population, partners with (NATO forces in Afghanistan) on nearly 90 percent of all coalition operations, of which the ANSF is the lead for more than 40 percent of those partnered operations,” according to the Pentagon’s ‘Report on Progress and Stability in Afghanistan.’

Motorcycle bomber kills 10 in eastern Afghanistan

Despite the Pentagon’s claims, almost all of the joint activities were simple operations, Michael O’Hanlon, a defense expert at the Brookings Institution, who visited Afghanistan last week, told The Times.

The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and Politico’s John Harris talk about support pledged by President Barack Obama to allow economic help and keep resources in Afghanistan until 2024.

Reports that some Afghan security officials are colluding with insurgents is sure to cause worry as NATO nations meet in Chicago to discuss the future of the war-torn country once 130,000 NATO troops leave.

While some troops from NATO countries will most probably stay behind after 2014, local forces will be expected to bear the brunt of the fighting and security operations, and stop the country from sliding into civil war.

About 3,000 foreign soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the war began after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

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@ May 20, 2012