NewsTracker Answers for week of June 02, 2014

Q: The lone American prisoner of war captured in Afghanistan was released in exchange for five Taliban detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Where is Afghanistan?

Circle the area on this map

Q: The detainees were flown to Qatar where they will be subject to security restrictions, including a one-year travel ban. Where is Qatar located?

A. North Africa

B. Persian Gulf

C. Southeast Asia

D. The Balkans

B. Oil-rich Qatar occupies a small peninsula in the Persian Gulf. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south. Qatari officials negotiated the prisoner exchange.

Q: Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, was handed over by Taliban forces to American Special Operations troops near the border with Afghanistan's southern neighbor . . .

A. China

B. Iran

C. Pakistan

D. Uzbekistan

C. The Taliban's stronghold is along both sides of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Islamic fundamentalist Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in the mid-1990s with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia. U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001.

Q: In the 1980s, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States all supported rebels in a 10-year fight against troops from . . .

A. China

B. India

C. Iran

D. Soviet Union

D. At the time of the war, Afghanistan's northern neighbors - Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - were part of the Russian-dominated Soviet Union. The Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, and some of the fighters supported by the U.S. went on to lead the Taliban and the terrorist group Al-Qaeda.

Q: President Barak Obama was criticized for ignoring a long-standing policy against negotiating with terrorists. But, President Ronald Reagan approved an arms deal in 1986 to gain the release of U.S. hostages held in Lebanon, which is on the shores of the . . .

A. Mediterranean Sea

B. Persian Gulf

C. Red Sea

D. Arabian Sea

A. The Reagan administration secretly arranged to sell arms to Iran to win the release of seven Americans held by a Lebanon militants with Iranian ties. Some money from the sale was used to fund rebels in Nicaragua. U.S. law banned both arms sales to Iran and aid to the Nicaragua rebels.