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jacket and rifle. Given the deadly insider attacks that had rocked U.S.-Afghan relations, he was putting his trust -- and his life -- in the hands of the Afghan troops he was training.
• "I tell people who are visiting: 'Take that stuff off. Your first line of defense is your rapport, not your gear,'" Bourbeau said.
• That kind of cultural awareness and relationship-building is cited by a new Pentagon report noting the slight ebb in the deadly insider attacks on Americans by Afghan forces. Another reason is less encouraging: Americans have taken better measures to protect themselves.
• New high walls and barbed wire divide U.S. and Afghan bases where troops once mingled relatively freely. New routines are in place, such as appointing "guardian angels" to watch other soldiers as they sleep in far-flung bases. More biometric and other background checks are run on the Afghans working with the Americans. Troops' quarters and training areas are separate, and Afghans are forbidden to walk armed in most U.S. bases.
• A few years ago, American troops had convinced themselves that they could trust their Afghan colleagues while pursuing a strategy that called for empowering local security forces. It was a deadly miscalculation. Growing numbers of Afghan forces turned their guns on their coalition partners.
• ___

• ISLAMABAD (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Pakistani counterpart, Sartaj Aziz, said Thursday that the two countries will resume high-level negotiations over security issues.
• Kerry also said he had invited Pakistan's newly elected Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, to come to Washington to meet with President Barack Obama.
• "I'm pleased to announce that today, very quickly, we were able to agree to a resumption of the strategic dialogue in order to foster a deeper, broader and more comprehensive partnership between our countries," Kerry said at a press conference with Aziz in Islamabad.
• He said the talks will cover "all of the key issues between us, from border management to counterterrorism to promoting U.S. private investment and to Pakistan's own journey to economic revitalization."
• The U.S. and Pakistan launched high-level talks on a wide swath of security and development programs in 2010. But the talks stalled in November 2011 after U.S.

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