Authorities in Belgium stepped up security after police detained 14 suspected Islamic extremists who the government said were plotting a jailbreak to free an al-Qaida prisoner convicted of planning to attack US military personnel.

Seven suspected Islamic radicals are going on trial in France yesterday – four of them for allegedly providing logistical support to the killers of Ahmed Shah Massood, the Afghan anti-Taliban military commander.

Several thousand people gathered amid heavy security today at a mosque in northern Afghanistan to mark the first anniversary of the killing of Ahmed Shah Massood.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is due in the US today for ceremonies commemorating last year’s September 11 attacks, pledged to stay the course in fighting terrorism.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, en route to the United States for ceremonies commemorating last year’s September 11 attacks, today pledged to stay the course in fighting terrorism.

AFGHAN president Hamid Karzai survived an assassination attempt yesterday when a security guard fired at his car shortly after 22 people were killed in a car blast in Kabul.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped an assassin’s bullets today – an attack blamed on Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man.

A powerful car bomb rocked a busy market area in the centre of Kabul today, killing at least 22 people in the bloodiest attack in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban.

OSAMA BIN LADEN personally ordered the assassination of Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood days before the September 11 attacks, a former senior Taliban official has said.

Osama bin Laden personally ordered the assassination of Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood just days before the September 11 attacks, a former senior Taliban official has said.

A man of Tunisian origin has been arrested in Belgium on suspicion of recruiting fighters for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

A Northern Alliance helicopter has crashed in Afghanistan killing 18 people.

Belgian police have raided 11 houses as part of an investigation into the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massood, the military leader of the Northern Alliance.

Taliban forces appeared to be fleeing Kabul tonight as the opposition Northern Alliance said their troops had pushed to the gates of the Afghan capital.

A former guerrilla commander in Afghanistan has urged Taliban rulers to form a broad-based alliance to fight the United States, saying that he and his troops are ready to join such a force.

The only survivor of last month's suicide bombing that killed the anti-Taliban leader says the attack was plotted by Osama bin Laden's network.

Afghanistan's Northern Alliance is preparing for a major offensive against the Taliban during the allied bombardment.

The opposition alliance in northern Afghanistan reviewed its forces today and pledged to launch an attack against the Taliban without waiting for US military action.

Afghanistan’s opposition alliance attacked a key northern district overnight, with heavy fighting still raging today.

Helicopter gunships belonging to opposition troops fired rockets in the vicinity of the Kabul airport early today, hours after the devastating terrorist attacks in the United States, according to Taliban soldiers and eyewitnesses.

Calling Ahmed Shah Massood their battlefield enemy, the hard-line Islamic Taliban denied they were behind a suicide bombing that has critically injured the opposition leader.

Afghanistan's opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood is in a serious condition in hospital after a suicide bombing at his base.

45 people, many of them children, died of cholera in northern Afghanistan in a single day last week.