SUICIDE attackers stormed a British compound in the Afghan capital yesterday, killing at least eight people in a series of explosions in more than eight hours of gunfighting on the anniversary of the country’s independence from Britain.

An Afghan soldier “executed” a prisoner on a British base in Helmand province, Ministry of Defence documents disclose.

AFGHAN forces should be leading security operations across the country by 2014, an international conference agreed yesterday, with the aim of relieving foreign troops in some areas by as soon as the end of the year.

British troops are to pull out of Afghanistan by 2014 according to a secret document mapping out a blueprint for the withdrawal of coalition forces, it was reported today.

Allied troops must stay in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban filling any “vacuum”, Britain's Foreign Secretary said today.

Insurgent and terrorist violence in Afghanistan increased sharply in 2007, with over 8,000 conflict-related deaths and an average of 566 incidents per month, United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon said.