The Taliban claims responsibility for the strike in the heart of the Afghan capital, saying 'heavy casualties' have been inflicted. The attack with rockets and automatic weapons appears to center on the well-fortified 'green zone,' where the U.S. Embassy and the headquarters of NATO forces are housed.

Insurgents staged a brazen attack Tuesday in the heart of the Afghan capital, firing rockets apparently aimed at the U.S. Embassy or the nearby headquarters of the NATO force.

Heavy explosions echoed near a central square, as terrified Afghans fled the sound of fighting. "Again, again!" said an elderly shopkeeper as he hastily rolled down the metal shutter protecting his carpet store and prepared to flee.

Insurgents appeared to have seized a tall building under construction as a staging ground for the attack with rockets and automatic weapons -- a tactic used previously in similar strikes elsewhere in the country. The targeted area is dense with diplomatic compounds

August has become the deadliest month for U.S. troops in the nearly 10-year-old war in Afghanistan, where international forces have started to go home and let Afghan forces take charge of securing their country.

A record 66 U.S. troops have died so far this month, eclipsing the 65 killed in July 2010, according to a tally by The Associated Press.

This month's death toll soared when 30 Americans — most of them elite Navy SEALs — were killed in a helicopter crash Aug. 6. They were aboard a Chinook shot down as it was flying in to help Army Rangers who had come under fire in Wardak province. It was the single deadliest incident of war being waged by Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces and insurgents.

America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The agreement would allow not only military trainers to stay to build up the Afghan army and police, but also American special forces soldiers and air power to remain.

The prospect of such a deal has already been met with anger among Afghanistan’s neighbours including, publicly, Iran and, privately, Pakistan.

It also risks being rejected by the Taliban and derailing any attempt to coax them to the negotiating table, according to one senior member of Hamid Karzai’s peace council.

The top NATO commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that the doomed Navy SEALs mission that claimed 30 American lives was intended to stop fleeing Taliban fighters and not necessarily a rescue mission as first reported.

After the crash Saturday, news reports quoted NATO officials as saying commanders dispatched the CH-47 Chinook helicopter with 22 SEALs onboard to rescue an Army Ranger team pinned down by the Taliban.

The huge twin-engine CH-47 was downed by a rocket-propelled grenade as it approached a “hot” landing zone.

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, told Pentagon reporters via a teleconference from Kabul that the mission was to stop Taliban fighters from fleeing in the Wardak province’s Tangi Valley.

“As this mission unfolded, we saw some significant success occurring on the objective itself, but there were elements that were escaping,” Gen. Allen said.

Obama will announce in a televised address at 8 p.m. EDT (midnight GMT) a plan to pull out 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by year's end, followed by about 23,000 more by the end of next summer, congressional aides told Reuters.

News that Obama will pull the entire 'surge' force he sent to Afghanistan in 2010 caps weeks of speculation about the future of U.S. involvement there and could increase friction between Obama and military advisors who have warned about the perils of a hasty drawdown.

Nearly 10 years after the September 11 attacks that triggered the war, U.S. and NATO forces have been unable to deal a decisive blow to the insurgent Taliban. The Afghan government remains weak and notoriously corrupt and billions of dollars in foreign aid efforts have yielded meager results.

U.S. Army medic Sgt. Jaime Adame hauled open the door and lunged from the helicopter into a cloud of dirt and confusion.

He could hear bursts of incoming fire above the thumping rotor blades. Somewhere in the billowing red smoke that marked the landing zone and the choking dust whipped up by the medevac chopper was a cluster of Marines pinned down by heavy fire, and one of them was bleeding badly.

The problem for Adame was that he did not know where.

Adame had dropped into "hot L-Zs" before but this one was especially thick with commotion. Every second of indecision mattered, so he just ran, knowing any direction was dangerous. Only then did the cloud clear enough to bring into view the blurred outline of several Marines' boots peeking out of the vehicle they were taking cover under.

"The fear I have never lost," said Adame, who's from Los Angeles. "It's absolutely risky ... and it will definitely get a lot more dangerous."

Honoring those who fought and died in Iraq and Afghanistan -- The List.