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Fort Bragg, North Carolina (CNN) — It’s been clear for months that the fighting in Afghanistan is more intense than it’s been since the war there started nearly nine years ago. Yet, from the midst of those increasingly violent firefights come some amazing stories of heroism.

On Monday, seven soldiers will receive public recognition for their actions during a Silver Star ceremony at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

The medals — the third-highest award for valor in the Army — are being awarded for five separate battles over a span of more than two years.

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Washington (CNN) — The House of Representatives on Tuesday gave final approval to a nearly $59 billion emergency spending bill, the bulk of which would go toward the U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan.

Specifically, the bill includes almost $33 billion for Afghanistan, along with over $5 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, almost $3 billion for Haiti relief programs and $68 million for the oil disaster response in the Gulf of Mexico.

It now goes to the president for his signature.

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(CNN) — As few as “a couple of thousand” U.S. troops may leave Afghanistan in the first phase of withdrawing forces from there beginning a year from now, Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

“It could be as few as a couple of thousand troops; it could be more,” Biden told ABC’s “This Week.”

Asked about a book that quotes him as saying the troop withdrawal would start with “a whole lot of people” leaving Afghanistan, Biden confirmed the comment but said he was responding to an assertion that there might be no withdrawal at all at that time.

Full Story at msnbc.com

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton started a South Asia tour on Sunday aimed at refining the goals of the nearly 9-year-old war in Afghanistan and pushing neighboring nations to work together in the fight against al-Qaida and Taliban extremists.

Clinton landed in Islamabad where she will underscore the need for Afghan-Pakistani cooperation in winning the war but also announce plans to beef up U.S. development assistance to Pakistan, which is rife with anti-American sentiment.

Full Story at msnbc.com

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama sacked his loose-lipped Afghanistan commander Wednesday, a seismic shift for the U.S. military order in wartime, and chose the familiar, admired — and tightly disciplined — Gen. David Petraeus to replace him. Petraeus, architect of the Iraq war turnaround, was once again to take hands-on leadership of a troubled war effort.

Full Story at CBS News

(AP) President Barack Obama on Saturday told graduating cadets who soon will head to war that their country needs allies standing with the U.S. in Afghanistan and around the world at a time when many countries are questioning their commitment to that fight and the costs of war.

“The burdens of this century cannot fall on American shoulders alone,” the commander in chief said at the U.S. Military Academy, where in December he announced he was sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

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Washington (CNN) — Vice President Joe Biden and his predecessor Dick Cheney sparred Sunday over terrorism and the Iraq war, duking it out on the most prominent of platforms: the political TV talk show.

In separate appearances on different programs, Cheney called the Obama administration “dead wrong” about al Qaeda and Iraq, while Biden accused Cheney of trying to “rewrite history” and downplay Obama’s actions against terrorism.

Full Story at msnbc.com

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama wants $192 billion in war spending for the next year-and-a-half, a hefty sum aimed at escalating the war in Afghanistan despite its waning popularity.

The request reflects Obama’s recent decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to blunt a growing insurgency there.

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Washington (CNN) – A leading Republican strategist and one-time aide to former Vice President Cheney said Sunday that President Obama’s recently announced decision to send an additional 30, 000 troops to Afghanistan is “a reassertion of the Bush doctrine.”

“The [Bush] doctrine is no safe havens [for terrorists intent on harming the United States] and we go after those that provide a harbor [for such terrorists]. That’s the doctrine,” Republican strategist Mary Matalin explained Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

Obama’s decision to surge additional troops into Afghanistan is “solid policy,’ in Matalin’s view and “a reassertion of the Bush doctrine.”

“Every strategic element is from the Bush doctrine. The tactics are from the Bush surge [in Iraq],” she said.

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Washington (CNN) — The White House has authorized an expansion of the CIA’s program to attack suspected al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with missiles shot from pilotless planes, a U.S. official confirms.

The covert effort is part of the Obama administration’s plan to increase the number of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan and crack down on suspected terrorists in the region.