KABUL, Afghanistan – U.S.-led troops handed complete control of security to Afghanistan authorities Tuesday – an act of faith in country’s fledgling police and army in the face of near-constant insurgent attacks.

The formal transfer of responsibility is major milestone in the process of withdrawal from the country, 12 years after NATO-led mission ISAF began its mission to end Taliban rule.

However, a botched car bomb that killed at least three civilians just before the official handover ceremony raising renewed questions about how the country’s 352,000-strong security forces will tackle the militant threat.

Most foreign combat troops will leave the country by the end of 2014, but international funding and humanitarian aid will continue - prolonging the political headache for President Barack Obama over America's involvement in the conflict.

“Today is a day for all Americans to take pride in the hard work our service members and their civilian counterparts are performing every day in Afghanistan,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a statement that called Tuesday’s handover a “critical milestone.”

Ordinary Afghans may be harder to convince.

“It is a good decision that the Afghan forces are taking the responsibility because it is their own country and they are the one who should be responsible for the security,” said Kabul restaurant owner Mohammad Faried, adding: “I still have doubts. If they do not have good weapons it will be hard for them to keep peace and stability in the country especially in the villages.”

Jawad Jalali / EPA

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, shakes hands with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen prior to Tuesday's ceremony in Kabul.

The U.S. and its allies have yet to decide exactly how long troops will remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014, and what their role should be.

Earlier this month, retired four-star general John Allen called on the U.S. to keep a larger force in Afghanistan than the 8,000-12,000 reportedly being considered by U.S. officials.

Among the problems is a high desertion rate in local police forces, meaning thousands of new recruits are needed each month.

A Congressional research report published in April said the Obama administration was also concerned that “weak and corrupt governance” in Afghanistan would hamper the fight against the Taliban.

In additional The Afghan army has suffered a sharp rise in casualties since it began slowly assuming greater control of security, the BBC reported.  By comparison, international coalition casualties have been steadily falling since 2010, it said.

Afghans are now responsible for security in all districts of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, completing a transfer of power from NATO that began in 2011.

“Is a great day for us, not only for the Afghan government but also for the Afghan nation,” said Janan Mosazai, spokesperson for the country's ministry of foreign affairs. “It is a big day of honor.”

The U.S. military is by far the single biggest group within ISAF’s steadily-shrinking force of about 100,000 foreign troops [PDF link here.]

The security handover means the remaining US-led forces will play only a supporting role, providing help if needed but no longer taking the lead in tackling insurgent attacks.

"We will continue to help Afghan troops in operations if needed,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at Tuesday’s ceremony. “But we will no longer plan, execute or lead those operations. And by the end of 2014, our combat mission will be completed. At that time, Afghanistan will be fully secured by Afghans.”

As combat troops are scaled down, the U.S. focus will shift to Special Operations forces who will advise the Afghan military on hunting down top insurgent or terrorist leaders.

On any day in Afghanistan, about 60 Special Operations teams are working with Afghan local police forces to provide security in villages, according to a New York Times report.

The target of Tuesday's suicide car bomb attack was prominent lawmaker and Shia Muslim cleric Mohammed Mohaqiq, police at the scene told The Associated Press.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

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Gen. Mohammad Zahir, chief of the Kabul Criminal Investigation Division, told the AP three people were killed by the bombing and another 30 were wounded — including six bodyguards. Mohaqiq survived the attack, Reuters reported.

In March, Karzai publicly criticized the American presence in his country, causing embarrassment to U.S. defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, during his first visit to Kabul in the new role.

NBC News’ Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

Related:

• Taliban accused of beheading two young boys
• Full Afghanistan coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Tue Jun 18, 2013 11:06 AM EDT

Naseer Ahmed / Reuters

A rescue worker and security official collect evidence at the site of a bomb blast in Quetta, Pakistan, June 15.

QUETTA, Pakistan -- Militants in western Pakistan bombed a bus carrying women university students on Saturday and then seized part of the hospital where survivors of the attack were taken, killing at least 12 people, officials said.

At least 19 were injured.

The gunmen in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province long plagued by sectarian violence, were holed up in the emergency ward of a hospital, engulfed in a firefight pitting militants against the security forces.

Television footage showed security forces surrounding the Bolan Medical Complex and a helicopter hovering overhead.

The attack in resource-rich Baluchistan was Pakistan's most lethal since the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took office last week.

The initial blast gutted the bus, killing 11 students, and another explosion went off soon after at the hospital, the city's largest. Television footage showed people fleeing the building in panic.

A senior local government official was killed in the hospital attack, the state television network reported.

Earlier, city police chief Mir Zubair Mehmood told Reuters that the students on the bus were from various ethnic groups, including the Hazara minority that has been the target of a series of bombings this year.

Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

Muhammed Muheisen / AP

Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

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Saturday's attack was the biggest since bombings in the city at the start of the year killed almost 200 people, briefly drawing global attention to a growing campaign of victimization of the Hazaras by sectarian militants.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack, or whether it was aimed at the Hazaras.

The 500,000-strong community in Quetta has been subjected to an escalating campaign of shootings and bombings by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), a militant group dedicated to attacking Pakistan's Shiite Muslim minority, which includes the Hazaras.

Earlier in the day, suspected separatists killed a policeman and gutted an historic summer retreat used by Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in a hill town in the province, days after a new government vowed to end a guerrilla war there.

Baluchistan, with large copper and gold deposits, is a vast province bordering Iran and Afghanistan. As well as sectarian violence, it has suffered a long-running armed independence movement, and what rights groups call a campaign of forced disappearances by security forces.

Related: Full Pakistan coverage on NBCNews.com

Rahmat Gul / AP

An Afghan policeman is seen at the burning Red Cross building in Jalalabad during a gunbattle with insurgents on Wednesday. A suicide bomber blew himself up at the gate and gunmen rushed inside, police said.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at the gates of a Red Cross building in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on Wednesday, clearing the way for two other insurgents to run inside and open fire, police said.

Four people, including the three attackers and a Red Cross guard at the gate, were killed, and the head of the Red Cross office was injured, said Abdul Ahad Fazli, spokesman for the Jalalabad police chief.

Rahmat Gul / AP

Afghan police take positions Wednesday during a gunbattle with insurgents at a Red Cross building in Jalalabad.

A firefight between police and the insurgents lasted about two hours, ending by 1 p.m. ET with the insurgents dead, Fazli said.

He described the storming of the building as having been carried out by “suicide” attackers.

A witness said by telephone that after the initial explosion, gunfire could be heard as the insurgents infiltrated the compound.

The shockwave from the blast broke windows in shops and homes in the area, he said.

Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs, said on Twitter that all seven foreign Red Cross staff members present during the attack had been safely escorted out of the building by police.

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva confirmed the attack and said that one of its guards had been killed and another employee wounded.

"We have been in contact with the rest of our staff in Jalalabad and they are safe and well," the group said on its official Twitter account.

The ICRC maintains its largest operation in Afghanistan, with about 1,800 staff members at 11 offices in the country, according to its website.

The attack on the Red Cross building came just hours after a similar one on provincial government offices in Panjsheer province. In that attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the main entrance to the offices, clearing the way for five gunmen to enter, Panjsheer Police Chief Haseeb Junglbagh said.

The five men, all of whom wore police uniforms, entered the building and opened fire, Junglbagh said, adding that all five were killed by police officers. One officer was killed and another wounded.

The Taliban, through spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for the first attack.

NBC News Producer Khyber Shinwari contributed to this report.

Related:

• US general: 'Not feasible' to completely destroy the Taliban
• 6 Americans, Afghan children among dead in Kabul suicide attack
• At least 3 US soldiers killed by bomb in Afghanistan
• US Marines pack up as Taliban wages spring offensive

This story was originally published on Wed May 29, 2013 11:31 AM EDT

Khaled al-Hariri / Reuters

A destroyed car is pictured near the former Interior Ministry building after a blast in central Damascus on Tuesday killed at least 13 people and injured dozens more, according to state television and activists.

BEIRUT -- A bomb in central Damascus killed 13 people on Tuesday, state television said, a day after Prime Minister Wael al-Halki survived an attack on his convoy in the heart of the Syrian capital.

State television said 70 people were wounded, several critically. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that nine civilians and five soldiers had died.

Pro-government Al-Ikhbariya television showed firefighters running through thick smoke after the blast in Marjeh Square. Two bodies could be seen on the ground.

The target of the attack was not immediately clear. Footage showed the site of the blast was near the former Interior Ministry building on one of the capital's main roads.

Monday's attack on the prime minister's convoy killed six people in what has become an increasingly common tactic used by rebels.

A resident of Damascus, who lives a mile from the blast site, said the explosion shook the doors of her house.

"It must be huge for me to hear it like that. Casualties must be horrific because it is a super busy square at this time of day," she said over Skype.

Rebels have increased their attacks on Damascus, which include mortar fire from the contested suburbs, in a civil war that has cost more than 70,000 lives according to U.N. estimates.

A bomb in July killed four of President Bashar Assad's aides, including his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and the defense minister.

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Inside a Syrian city split between rival militias

The brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings may have been headed for New York to party after the attack, the New York police commissioner said Wednesday.

“There was some information that they may have been intent on coming to New York, but not to continue doing what they’re doing,” Kelly told reporters at police headquarters. “The information that we received said something about a party, or having a party.”

A man authorities say was carjacked by the brothers has told investigators he believes one of the brothers said “Manhattan” before he escaped, but investigators have cautioned that it may have been a language mixup because the brothers were speaking with Russian dialects.

The surviving brother has told investigators that the pair acted alone, were inspired by an al Qaeda propaganda magazine, and plotted the bombing to defend Islam after the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, federal law enforcement officials told NBC News.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed early Friday after a shootout with police in the Boston suburbs. His younger brother and alleged accomplice, Dzhokhar, is in fair condition at a Boston hospital. The brothers killed a campus patrol officer and carjacked an SUV before the shootout, authorities have said.

Homemade explosives and one semi-automatic handgun believed to belong to the brothers were recovered by investigators, officials said. The gun’s serial number was obliterated, but Massachusetts state police were working to reveal the number.

Slideshow: Aftermath and reaction following Boston bombings

Cj Gunther / EPA

Heightened security, empty streets, and memorials mark the the days after the Boston Marathon bombings.

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Cambridge police, meanwhile, released a booking photo of Tamerlan Tsarnaev from a 2009 domestic violence arrest during which he was accused of assaulting his girlfriend.

In a closed-door session on Wednesday, members of the House Intelligence Committee were briefed by the FBI and other federal agencies on the ongoing investigation. Among the issues discussed is what federal authorities knew about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trip to Russia as well as a timeline on his radicalization. 

Also, according to an interview with Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Mich., the ranking member on the committee, it was learned that the device used to trigger the explosives was a remote control for a toy, not a cellphone as thought earlier.

Nine days after the twin blasts near the marathon finish line, authorities early Wednesday reopened the section of Boylston Street in central Boston where the first bomb went off.

The site of the explosion has been paved with fresh cement and is surrounded by orange construction cones but opened to foot traffic. People stopped to pay respects and take photos.

“The people of Boston are strong like cement. Strong people. They get together when it’s needed,” said Robert Bibias, a city masonry worker who early Wednesday cemented over what had been a blood-stained crime scene.

Thousands of people, including police from all over the country, gathered at the baseball stadium of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a memorial service for Sean Collier, the campus patrol officer who authorities said was shot to death by the Tsarnaev brothers before the carjacking and shootout.

With police snipers holding positions atop nearby buildings, Vice President Joe Biden called the perpetrators of the marathon bombing “twisted, perverted, cowardly, knockoff jihadis.”

“The irony is, we read about these events, we experience them, but the truth is, on every frontier, terrorism as a weapon is losing,” he said. “It is not gaining adherents.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev is seen in a booking photo from a 2009 arrest in Cambridge, Mass.

The vice president went on: “We will not hunker down. We will not be intimidated.”

His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, visited Boylston Street on Wednesday.

Private funerals were held Tuesday for Collier and for Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy killed near the finish line. Two other people were killed at the marathon, and more than 200 were injured, including 39 who were still hospitalized Wednesday.

In Russia, the brothers’ aunt said that a Boston-area mosque has refused to hold a funeral for Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

American authorities have told the family that they can have Tsarnaev’s body, and an uncle approached the mosque to request a burial and funeral but was declined, said the aunt, Patimat Suleimanova.

She said that she did not know the name of the mosque but that it was one the family attended. A mosque in Cambridge, Mass., has said that Tsarnaev attended and occasionally caused disruptions and that mosque leaders threatened to kick him out.

A spokesman for the Cambridge mosque, Yusufi Vali, said the mosque had not heard from the family.

“There were some reports out there that we had rejected his burial, and — or the family had reached out to us, rather. And to our knowledge, you know, the family has not reached out to us,” he said on the MSNBC program “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”

The mosque, run by the Islamic Society of Boston, has also said that congregants have been questioned by the FBI. The mosque did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday from NBC News.

Earlier this week, Imam Talal Eid of the Islamic Institute of Boston, a separate institution, told The Huffington Post: “I would not be willing to do a funeral for him. This is a person who deliberately killed people. There is no room for him as a Muslim.”

NBC News' Adrienne Mong, Alastair Jamieson, Bill Dedman and Matthew DeLuca contributed to this report.

Related:

• Full coverage of the Boston Marathon tragedy
• Wife of dead bombing suspect in 'absolute shock'
• FBI quizzes members of mosque suspect attended

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 24, 2013 7:14 AM EDT

A car bomb went off outside the French Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, on Tuesday, a Libyan Foreign Ministry official said.

The official said two guards were hurt, but no one had died.

Television images showed extensive damage to buildings in the area.

"I think there were two blasts, the first was very loud and then there was a smaller one," a  witness told Reuters. "There was some black smoke at first, and then it turned white."

Ismail Zitouny / Reuters

People stand among debris outside the French Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, after a car bomb exploded Tuesday.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius condemned what he called a heinous attack and said everything would be done to find the perpetrators, the news service reported.

"I send my solidarity and deepest sympathy to the two injured French guards and my wishes for their recovery," he said in a statement. 

In September, an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Suspect arrested in connection with Benghazi attack

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:40 AM EDT

LONDON -- British authorities ordered more police on the streets for Sunday's London Marathon in the wake of the Boston bombings, but experts warned it was "virtually impossible" to guarantee the safety of the hundreds of thousands who will attend the event. 

A police source said additional patrols by uniformed officers were planned to reassure the public in the wake of deadly attack.

While British security officials have been in contact with their counterparts in the U.S. following Monday's blasts, the U.K.'s threat level for international terrorism hasn't been changed from "substantial" -- the third of five categories on the scale.

At least 500,000 spectators are expected to watch Sunday’s race and Prince Harry is due to hand medals to the winners.

The course takes the 36,000 runners right past major sites - including Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace – as well as through Canary Wharf, the giant riverside financial district targeted twice by the Irish militants in the 1990s.

Even in a city that has spent recent decades under the threat of bombs – first from Irish Republicans, more recently jihadists – such a public event poses a security headache.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, said that the force was "taking more more precautions than we might have done otherwise."

"We will make sure we've got more officers on the street looking after people, making sure they're kept safe, but we've no reason to think they'd be any less safe than before the terrible events in Boston,." he said. "We'd be professionally irresponsible if we didn't take some reasonable steps."

Sang Tan / AP

Backdropped by Buckingham Palace, a jogger crosses the Mall in London on Tuesday. It will be transformed into the finishing area for Sunday's London Marathon.

Metropolitan Police Commander Christine Jones declined to give details of what changes might be made, if any, to the event's security plan. She said officers would “continue to review all the intelligence” available.

London Marathon chief executive Nick Bitel insisted the event would go ahead. “We will be reviewing our security in the coming days, in the light of what has happened in Boston," Bitel told ITV News.

"I don't want to talk about specifics of what security we have had in the past, or will have on Sunday. All I can say is that it will be of an appropriate level to meet whatever threat assessment is made, in conjunction with the police," he added.

Hugh Robertson, a British government minister, called for crowds and runners to attend in London as normal.

“The very best way to show solidarity with Boston is to get out there on the streets of London to cheer the runners on and to show that we won’t be defeated by this sort of activity,” he told the London Evening Standard newspaper.

Runners will be encouraged to wear a black ribbon at the start of the race to honor victims of the Boston bombing, and a 30-second silence will be observed, organizers said Wednesday. 

NBC News national security analyst Michael Leiter said it was “virtually impossible” to make a marathon completely secure because of its 26.2-mile long route.

“You just have to do the best you can to keep people safe and maintain resilience," he said. “It’s important we don’t alter our lives because that provides the terrorist – domestic, international, whoever it may be – with a huge victory.”

Helmut Spahn, executive director of the International Centre for Sport Security, told Reuters: "There has to be a clear analysis of the situation and certainly no over-reaction. More police, more military is not always the best solution. To have a 100 percent security is very, very difficult if not near impossible.”

Sang Tan / AP

A sign warns of road closures linked to the forthcoming London Marathon.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 17, 2013 2:29 AM EDT

Youssef Badawi / EPA

Burned cars seen at the site of what Syrian authorities said was a suicide car bombing in Damascus on Monday. At least 15 people were reported killed and 53 wounded in the blast. The government blamed 'terrorists,' and Syrian rebels blamed the government.

A suicide car bomb exploded in the main business district of Damascus on Monday, killing at least 15 people, setting cars ablaze and damaging buildings, according to state television.

A Damascus resident who described the blast as the biggest she had heard in the capital during the two-year-old revolt against President Bashar Assad said large plumes of black smoke were rising from the Sabaa Bahrat district.

State television said the explosion had occurred near a school in Sabaa Bahrat, a heavily populated area that also houses the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry. It said 53 people were wounded.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

/

A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

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Residents and opposition activists reported hearing gunfire and ambulance sirens in the vicinity. State television said shots had been fired in the air to clear a path for ambulances.

It showed footage of seven bodies in the street, including at least two charred corpses in the wreckage of an overturned bus. The fire brigade was dousing flames from cars crushed by the blast. Other vehicles were still on fire, lined up in what appeared to be a car park.

Men carried away a woman on a stretcher whose face was covered in blood. Panic-stricken women in long black dresses and headscarves ran toward the scene. State television showed some bandaged children in school uniform.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group with a network of local sources, including hospitals, said at least eight people had been killed.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but state media blamed "terrorists," a term the government uses for opposition fighters. Opposition groups accused the government of carrying out the attack.

Syrian insurgents based in the outskirts of Damascus have pushed into areas near the government-held heart of the city, stepping up mortar and car bomb attacks in recent weeks.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which started with peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule that were violently suppressed. An armed struggle ensued, forcing more than a million Syrians to flee abroad, and displacing millions more inside the country.

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Northern Irish police defused a bomb in a car on Saturday close to where G8 leaders will meet at a summit in June and said that the device was likely to have been intended for a police station nearby.

Army bomb disposal experts defused the device after a security operation that lasted almost 36 hours in the county Fermanagh town of Enniskillen. The Group of Eight leaders meet just outside the town in three months' time.

A senior Northern Irish officer said police believed the bomb was en route to a police station in a town nearby and would have killed or injured people if it had not been intercepted.

"Once again our community has been disrupted and the lives of residents put at risk by an element intent on causing loss of life and disruption," District Commander Pauline Shields said in a statement.

"The people responsible for this have no regard for the lives of anyone in our community. It is fortunate that no-one was killed or seriously injured as a result of this reckless act."

A 1998 peace deal largely ended more than three decades of violence in the British-controlled province between mainly Catholic Irish nationalists seeking union with Ireland and predominantly Protestant unionists who want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

However militant nationalists, who include former operatives who split from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) after it declared a ceasefire, still stage sporadic gun and bomb attacks and have targeted security forces in particular.

An attempt to fire mortar bombs at a police station was foiled earlier this month in what would have been the first attack of its kind in the United Kingdom since the peace deal ended the IRA's campaign of violence.

Related:

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• Five police injured in rioting in Northern Ireland
• 16 police officers wounded in Northern Ireland clashes

Mohammed Ameen / Reuters

Residents gather at the site of a car bomb attack in Baghdad. A series of apparently coordinated blasts hit Shiite districts across Baghdad and south of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD - Car bombs and a suicide blast hit Shiite districts of Baghdad and south of Iraq's capital on Tuesday, killing at least 50 people on the 10th anniversary of the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. 

Sunni Islamist insurgents tied to al Qaeda have stepped up attacks on Shiite targets since the start of the year in a campaign to stoke sectarian tension and undermine Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government. 

Tuesday's car bombs exploded near a busy Baghdad market, close to the heavily fortified Green Zone and in other districts across the capital. A suicide bomber driving a truck attacked a police base in a Shiite town just south of the capital, police and hospital sources said. 

"I was driving my taxi and suddenly I felt my car rocked. Smoke was all around. I saw two bodies on the ground. People were running and shouting everywhere," said Al Radi, a taxi driver caught in one of the blasts in Baghdad's Sadr City.

Another 160 people were wounded in the attacks, hospital officials said.

No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's blasts, but Iraq's al Qaeda wing, Islamic State of Iraq, has vowed to take back ground lost in its long war with American troops. Since the start of the year the group has carried out a string of high-profile attacks. 

Gunmen and suicide bombers stormed the well-protected Justice Ministry building in central Baghdad on Thursday, killing 25 people in an attack by the al Qaeda affiliate. 

A decade after U.S. and Western troops swept into Iraq to remove Saddam from power, Iraq still struggles with a stubborn insurgency, sectarian frictions and political instability among its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions. 

Syria's civil war is further fanning Iraq's volatility as Islamist insurgents invigorated by the mainly Sunni rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad try to tap into Sunni Muslim discontent in Iraq. 

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Iraq, 10 years on: Did invasion bring 'hope and progress' to millions as Bush vowed?

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Full Iraq coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Tue Mar 19, 2013 6:34 AM EDT