The Nato-led effort to subdue the Taliban suffered one of its heaviest blows since the 2001 invasion on Sunday when nine US soldiers were killed.
Afghan police backed by Nato air strikes killed 14 Taliban insurgents after the militants attacked a small town in eastern Afghanistan.
A suspected suicide bomber killed 15 Afghans and wounded 14 more in eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan on Tuesday, a Nato spokesperson said. The Taliban have vowed to step up suicide attacks this year to undermine the faith of Afghans in the ability of their government to provide security.
United States-led coalition troops killed three men, two children and a woman, in a raid in south-eastern Afghanistan, the district chief and village residents said on Wednesday. The issue of civilian casualties is a sensitive one as it undermines public support for the presence of foreign troops.
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/ 8 February 2008
German authorities have learnt that al-Qaeda is preparing to carry out attacks in Germany, a senior official said in an interview with Die Welt newspaper on Friday. The Secretary of State in the Interior Ministry, August Hanning, said al-Qaeda leaders based in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan have ”decided to carry out attacks in Germany”.
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/ 25 December 2007
Christians around the world celebrated Christmas on Tuesday as the Catholic leader in the Holy Land pleaded for peace in the Middle East and Pope Benedict XVI spoke against selfishness. Iraqi Christians meanwhile celebrated a fearful Christmas in the shadow of suicide bombings and sectarian violence.
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/ 24 November 2007
A suicide bomb on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday killed six schoolchildren and wounded three Italians working on an aid project building a bridge, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said. ”It was a suicide bomber … six schoolchildren coming out from school were killed,” said Zemarai Bashary.
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/ 30 September 2007
A suicide bomber killed 28 Afghan troops and two civilians on Saturday in an attack on an army bus in Kabul, the Afghan president said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in the Afghan capital since the hard-line Islamist movement was ousted from power for harbouring al-Qaeda leaders.
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/ 26 September 2007
Nato and United States-led troops backed up by warplanes said on Wednesday they had killed nearly 170 Taliban in two major battles in southern Afghanistan, while a US-led coalition soldier also died. The heaviest of the fighting with the Islamic insurgents erupted on Tuesday in the volatile southern province of Helmand.
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/ 24 September 2007
Two Italian soldiers kidnapped in western Afghanistan last week were freed in a raid by Nato-led forces early on Monday, Italy’s Defence Ministry said. The soldiers were wounded during the raid to free them, one of them seriously, the ministry said, adding that they had been taken to a hospital.