Keyword extraction involves identifying the most descriptive words in a document, allowing automatic categorisation and summarisation of large quantities of diverse textual data. Relying on the insight that real-world keyword detection often requires handling of diverse content, we propose a novel supervised keyword extraction approach based on the mixture of experts (MoE) technique. MoE uses a learnable routing sub-network to direct information to specialised experts, allowing them to specialize in distinct regions of the input space. SEKE, a mixture of Specialised Experts for supervised Keyword Extraction, uses DeBERTa as the backbone model and builds on the MoE framework, where experts attend to each token, by integrating it with a recurrent neural network (RNN), to allow successful extraction even on smaller corpora, where specialisation is harder due to lack of training data. The MoE framework also provides an insight into inner workings of individual experts, enhancing the explainability of the approach. We benchmark SEKE on multiple English datasets, achieving state-of-the-art performance compared to strong supervised and unsupervised baselines. Our analysis reveals that depending on data size and type, experts specialize in distinct syntactic and semantic components, such as punctuation, stopwords, parts-of-speech, or named entities. Code is available at: https://github.com/matejMartinc/SEKE_keyword_extraction

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN – Drones fired more weapons than conventional warplanes for the first time in Afghanistan last year and the ratio is rising, previously unreported U.S. Air Force data show, underlining how reliant the military has become on unmanned aircraft. The trend may give clues to the U.S. military's strategy as it considers withdrawing more troops from the country, while at the same time shoring up local forces who have struggled to stem a worsening Taliban insurgency. U.S. President Barack Obama said in 2013 that the Afghan drawdown after 2014 and progress against al-Qaida would "reduce the need for unmanned strikes," amid concerns from human rights groups and some foreign governments over civilian casualties. On one level, that has played out; the number of missiles and bombs dropped by drones in Afghanistan actually fell last year, largely because the U.S.-led NATO mission ceased combat operations at the end of 2014 and is now a fraction of the size. Yet as the force has shrunk, it has leaned on unmanned aircraft more than ever, the air force data reveal, with drone strikes accounting for at least 61 percent of weapons deployed in the first quarter of this year.

NATO-led mission in Afghanistan has confirmed that the US military will investigate into the US drone strikes in southeastern Afghanistan that killed 17 people last week. Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, spokesman for the US-led coalition, told Al Jazeera on Monday, that they will conduct an investigation into the air strikes carried out in the Paktika province. "Currently there is no evidence of civilian casualties, however, we are conducting a thorough investigation into the strikes," Cleveland, who is part of the Operation Resolute Support, said. Relatives and tribal elders demanded for an investigation on Saturday claiming that the air raids hit civilians, not members of armed groups. However, Afghan officials told Al Jazeera that the people killed in the attack had links to the Taliban.

Relatives and tribal elders in southeastern Afghanistan are demanding an investigation into the killing of 17 people by US drones this week, claiming the air strikes hit civilians - not members of armed groups. US army officials said on Thursday two air strikes in Paktika province, near the Pakistani border, had only targeted fighters, without any evidence of civilian casualties. Afghan officials confirmed to Al Jazeera that 17 people had been killed in Wednesday's strikes in Gomal district, but added they all had links to the Taliban. Yet, local leaders and relatives insisted on Saturday all of those killed were innocent civilians. "We demand an investigation into the brutal killings of these innocent people," Nimatullah Baburi, a deputy of the Paktika provincial council, told Al Jazeera.