From the BBC:

The British army's operation in Northern Ireland will come to an end at midnight on Tuesday after 38 years.

Operation Banner - the Army's support role for the police - has been its longest continuous campaign, with more than 300,000 personnel taking part.

A garrison of 5,000 troops will remain but security will be entirely the responsibility of the police.

British troops were sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 after violent clashes between Catholics and Protestants.

When the first soldiers were deployed in August 1969, commanders believed they would be in Northern Ireland for just a few weeks.

Call me crazy, but I think we should look on this as very good news. The Troubles had been regarded as being amongst the world's most intractable conflicts, but now it appears that a lasting peace has taken hold in Northern Ireland. We shouldn't write off that possibility elsewhere.

The question is, how did Northern Ireland get to that point?

From the BBC:

The Associated Press (AP) news agency has been reporting news and transmitting pictures since 1846, in the earliest days of the long-distance telegraph.

As the agency publishes Breaking News, a history of its role reporting war and peace around the world, the BBC asks three AP photographers - Horst Faas, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner most famous for his work during the Vietnam War, Santiago Lyon, AP's current global director of photography, and Oded Balilty, an Israeli who won a 2007 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography - for their views on the dangers of carrying cameras in conflict (audio slideshow).

From the BBC:

Nato is considering the use of smaller bombs in Afghanistan to try to curb the rising number of civilians killed during operations against the Taleban.

Commanders have also ordered troops to hold off attacking militants in some situations where civilians are at risk.

Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer acknowledged civilian casualties had hurt the alliance politically, in an interview with the Financial Times.

Aid agencies say Western forces have killed 230 civilians so far this year.

Between 700 and 1,000 civilians were killed by both sides during 2006, according to the Agency Co-ordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR).