Nato forces killed four civilians and wounded three others today when they fired at a vehicle that did not stop at a checkpoint in Afghanistan's volatile south, the alliance said.

A KEY Taliban commander said that al-Qaida terror network chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar are both alive and in good health after more than three years on the run.

VIOLENCE and systematic discrimination against women was rampant in Asia last year, ranging from acid attacks in Bangladesh to forced abortion in China, rape by soldiers in Nepal and domestic beatings in Australia, Amnesty International said yesterday.

Hundreds of Islamic clerics met in the rocket-damaged Presidential Palace in Kabul today to decide whether to extradite terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden or to declare a holy war against the United States if its forces attack Afghanistan.

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.