In brief: U.S. delays withdrawal of 1,000 troops from Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan – The U.S. military is delaying withdrawal of up to 1,000 troops through the first few months of 2015, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Saturday.

The decision means that up to 10,800 troops, rather than 9,800, could remain in Afghanistan as the U.S.-led combat mission winds down at the end of December.

“We are committed to preventing al-Qaida from using Afghanistan as a safe haven to threaten the United States, our allies and partners and the Afghan people,” Hagel said. “We will take appropriate measures against Taliban members who directly threaten U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, or provide direct support to al-Qaida.

Hagel made the announcement alongside Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the presidential palace in what’s expected to be his final visit as defense secretary.

Last month, the Afghan government approved the U.S.-Afghanistan Bilateral Security Agreement and the NATO Status of Forces Agreement, which extended U.S. presence in the country through 2016.

Bone ID’d as missing Mexican student’s

MEXICO CITY – Nearly 10 weeks after 43 college students in Mexico were kidnapped by police, forensic experts have identified a bone found among remains in a trash dump as belonging to one of the missing men, the school and federal officials said Saturday.

This would be a key clue in discovering the fate of the students, last seen Sept. 26 in the city of Iguala, in Guerrero state, after a deadly confrontation with police acting on the orders of the mayor, according to the government.

A message on the college’s Facebook page said Argentine forensic investigators, whom the families brought to inspect remains, had notified the father of Alexander Mora, one of the students, that a bone had been identified as the young man’s.

A spokesperson for the federal attorney general’s office also confirmed that an identification had been made but would not divulge the name until a news conference to be held today.

The Mexican government has said that garbage bags full of ashes and bone fragments discovered in a trash dump at Cocula, near Iguala, where the students were abducted, were too deteriorated to be identified easily. Samples were sent to a laboratory in Austria, where the identification was apparently made.

Without a definitive identification, many of the students’ parents refused to believe their children were dead, despite statements from detainees who described in detail how they killed, dismembered and burned the bodies.

Iran court charges American reporter

WASHINGTON – A Washington Post reporter detained in Iran for more than four months was formally charged Saturday after a daylong proceeding in a Tehran courtroom, the newspaper reported.

Jason Rezaian, the newspaper’s bureau chief in Tehran since 2012, appeared in court almost five months after his arrest July 22. The charges were the first against him since the arrest, the Post said. He is an Iranian-American who holds dual citizenship.

The newspaper, quoting a source familiar with the case, said the nature of the charges against him were not immediately clear to those not present in the courtroom.

His detention has been extended to mid-January in recent days because the investigation is continuing, the Post said.

His family has hired an attorney for him, but his lawyer has not been permitted to visit him.