Afghan police killed 12 Taliban militants in a southern gun battle today, while more than 30 suspected insurgents were detained as security forces fought back against a deadly spike in violence, officials said.

An Afghan warlord wanted by the United States declared support for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in a videotape broadcast today by Al-Jazeera television.

Afghan police and international peacekeepers raided a compound in the capital Kabul early today and arrested eight men with suspected links to al-Qaida and a group loyal to a banned Afghan warlord, a spokesman for the peacekeepers said.

INSURGENTS attacked a police headquarters in southeastern Afghanistan, sparking a battle yesterday that killed at least 15 fighters and seven Afghan police, a police chief said.

Hundreds of rebels in a convoy of trucks attacked a police headquarters in south-east Afghanistan today, triggering a gun battle that killed 22 people, officials said. It was one of the largest shows of anti-government force in over a year.

A MASKED militant, speaking in a video filmed in a mud hut, warns of new al-Qaida suicide attacks and says Osama bin Laden's terror network carried out deadly bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

AFGHAN rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said he is proud that the US has branded him a terrorist and echoed Osama bin Laden’s call for suicide attacks against Americans, according to a statement released yesterday.

US special forces have destroyed a drug-production lab and seized documents allegedly tying the site to a fugitive warlord on the United States' most wanted list.

Two gunmen firing assault rifles assassinated Afghan vice president Abdul Qadir as he was being driven from a government ministry in the capital, Kabul, today.

An Afghan warlord with links to the Iranian and Pakistani authorities has called for a jihad, or holy war, against the British and US soldiers currently stationed in Afghanistan.

Hundreds of people were arrested in Kabul in connection with an alleged plot to destabilise the interim administration installed by the UN.

A mortar shell slammed into a school near Kabul today, killing a child and injuring about 30 others, a government spokesman said.

The Indian army today said it had killed five Pakistani members of an Islamic militant group.

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.

A former Afghan warlord has urged the ruling Taliban regime to form an alliance with other ethnic groups to fight the United States.