Afghan and United States-led coalition forces have killed more than 100 Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand during days of fighting.
Sixty children were killed in air strikes by United States-led coalition warplanes in western Afghanistan last week, a UN investigation has found.
Pakistani troops killed 35 militants in fighting in the Swat Valley north-west of Islamabad on Saturday after the militants ambushed a patrol.
A suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a police station in Pakistan’s Swat Valley on Saturday, killing at least eight policemen.
United States-led coalition forces killed 30 militants, including a Taliban commander, in an air strike in west Afghanistan.
President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday he had no regrets about sending 700 more troops to Afghanistan, after insurgents killed 10 soldiers
A wave of Taliban suicide bombers backed by gunmen attempted to breach the defences of the main US base in south-eastern Afghanistan overnight.
Afghan and US-led coalition forces have killed more than 90 militants during several days of fighting in the south of the country this week.
Pakistan promises to ”weed out” elements sympathetic to the Taliban after claims of link between intelligence service and Afghan bombing.
Nato killed dozens of Taliban insurgents in an air strike on Sunday in Afghanistan’s south-eastern province of Khost, the provincial governor said.
Barack Obama on Monday pledged to increase United States troops in Afghanistan by a third if he becomes president, sending 10 000 reinforcements.
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.
A helicopter belonging to United States-led coalition troops was shot down by small-arms fire south of the Afghan capital on Wednesday.
A Taliban fighter accused of masterminding a string of attacks on UK forces in Afghanistan has been killed in a ”deliberate and surgical strike”.
Afghan police backed by Nato air strikes killed 14 Taliban insurgents after the militants attacked a small town in eastern Afghanistan.
US-led coalition forces killed 55 militants including three ”extremist leaders” in fighting near the insurgency-hit Afghan-Pakistani border.
A suicide attack on a Nato convoy in southern Afghanistan on Friday killed 10 civilians and wounded some Nato soldiers.
Afghan and Nato-led forces killed or wounded hundreds of Taliban on Thursday in an offensive to clear the militants from the outskirts of Kandahar.
Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s President, escalated tensions with neighbouring Pakistan on Sunday by threatening to send troops across the border.
A bomb went off outside the Danish embassy in the Pakistani capital on Monday killing at least four people and wounding several, officials said. The blast destroyed the embassy gate and damaged the building and vehicles in the compound in the up-market district of Islamabad.
Afghan authorities said on Saturday they have killed more than 100 Taliban-linked militants in an operation to retake a remote district from the rebels in south-western Afghanistan. The rebels were killed during two days of operations by Afghan security forces and their international allies in Bakwa, a remote district in the south-western province of Farah.
The United States will no longer be able to stockpile cluster bombs at its military bases in Britain under government proposals for an international ban on the controversial weapons. As diplomats from more than 100 states unanimously passed a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs, it emerged that British ministers are prepared to go further.
Sam Sole, the M&G‘s award-winning investigative reporter, and Matthew Burbidge, news editor of the M&G Online, interviewed Seymour Hersch, the original newsman, who says ”The wonderful thing about our profession is if we do it right, stories are not Democrat or Republican, left or right, hawk or dove, pro or anti-government. Stories are stories, and they’re just the truth.”
Australian soldiers are ashamed of their low-risk missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and are scorned by troops of other nations, two officers charged in comments published on Tuesday. ”The restrictions and policies enforced on infantrymen in Iraq have resulted in the widespread perception that our army is plagued by institutional cowardice,” Major Jim Hammett said.
Afghanistan, struggling with a huge indigenous drug problem, has a new crisis. Its drug treatment centres — particularly in the capital, Kabul – are being inundated by heroin-addicted former refugees, many forcibly expelled from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan.
A fading photo tossed on an empty bed is all that remains of the interrupted lives in Spinkai, a desolate Pakistani village that has endured the wrath of the army’s ”collective punishment”. In the image, a laughing young man in a jet-black turban brandishes his rifle like a trophy. Beside him stand two little girls in bright frocks, giggling with glee.
Suspected Taliban militants have released Pakistan’s envoy to Afghanistan more than three months after he was kidnapped in Pakistan’s Khyber tribal region, a senior government official said on Saturday. Pakistani television channels said the envoy, Tariq Azizuddin, had been freed in Afghanistan.
Taliban insurgents have ordered residents of a province near the capital Kabul to stop watching television, saying the networks were showing un-Islamic programmes, officials and local media said on Tuesday. The order is the last in a wave of curbs that the resurgent militants have announced in areas they are active.
Syed Ali was playing on the roof of his mud-brick house when the killers came for Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai last week. Karzai survived the attack on Kabul’s broad parade ground. Ten-year-old Syed Ali, a kilometre away watching his mother cleaning almond shells to supplement the family’s winter fuel, died, with two others, when he was hit by a stray bullet.
The Pentagon is considering sending up to 7 000 more United States troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from Nato allies, the New York Times reported on Saturday. The paper said the push could drive US forces in Afghanistan to about 40 000.
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.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped unhurt after an assassination attempt by Taliban fighters with guns and rockets during an official celebration in the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. Government ministers along with leaders of other political factions were seen ducking for cover after gunfire sounded at the celebration to mark the 16th anniversary of fall of the Afghan communist government.