The discovery of Osama bin Laden’s hideaway in a city at the heart of Pakistan’s military establishment today revived questions about alleged links between al-Qaida and elements in the country’s security forces.

Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man, is dead, US president Barack Obama announced today.

This is the text of the statement made by US president Barack Obama this morning.

Former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said his biggest mistake during his six years in the Pentagon was not resigning after shocking photos of the treatment of Iraqi inmates by American soldiers at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison were published.

AFGHAN lawmakers set aside a demand for President Hamid Karzai to scrap a controversial court probing election fraud yesterday, paving the way for parliament to convene in days after weeks of in-fighting.

THE proposed visit by Tony Blair to Ireland on September 3/4 to publicise his autobiography should be used by the Irish people to express their opposition to the wars and military occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq that were carried out in contravention of the UN charter and that have cost the lives of an estimated 1.5 million people so far.

A Briton, six Americans and another foreigner on a medical mission were shot and killed by the Taliban who ambushed their vehicles in a remote part of northern Afghanistan, a charity said today.

A remote-controlled bomb targeting a police convoy killed 12 people today in western Afghanistan, a day after three American soldiers died in a complex militant ambush in the country’s east.

The top United Nations official in Afghanistan called today for talks with Taliban leaders at the highest level, another indication that parts of the international community are reaching out to the radical Islamist movement.

President Barack Obama, confronting an inherited and faltering war, plans to dispatch thousands more military and civilian trainers to Afghanistan by the autumn on top of the 17,000 combat troops he has already ordered, senior administration officials said.

Taliban leader Mullah Muhammed Omar is not in Pakistan’s south-western Baluchistan province and the US should not carry out missile attacks in the region, a senior official said.

Afghan refugees ordered out of a Pakistani war zone have begun flowing over the border into their homeland, worsening a humanitarian crisis resulting from an army offensive against Taliban militants, officials said.

The chief of the US military said the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison camp should be closed as soon as possible because negative publicity about the treatment of terror suspects had been “pretty damaging” to America’s image.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged “difficult going” fighting a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, but insisted that the world cannot afford to pull out now.

A suicide attacker detonated his bomb-rigged car near a coalition military convoy north of Kabul today, killing himself and an Afghan bystander, but causing no coalition casualties.

A roadside bomb blast killed four Canadian soldiers today in southern Afghanistan in the deadliest attack against Canadian forces since they deployed here in 2002, the military said.

Pakistani army helicopters have destroyed an insurgent hideout in north-western Pakistan and killed at least seven militants in an attack targeting an Egyptian al-Qaida operative wanted for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Seven mid-ranking Taliban rebels have escaped from Afghanistan’s main high-security prison, officials said today.

Afghanistan is today welcoming officials from several nearby nations for a two-day regional economic conference the government said would enhance security and promote cooperation and development.

The pan-Arab TV channel Al-Jazeera today condemned a Spanish court’s finding that one of its journalists had collaborated with terrorism, accusing the judges of violating legal principles.

The US military in Iraq has detained five Americans for suspected insurgent activity, Pentagon officials said. The five have not been chargd or had access to a lawyer, and face an uncertain legal future.

Suspected Taliban gunmen ambushed a convoy of civilian trucks carrying vehicles to the US military in southern Afghanistan, killing three of the drivers, an Afghan official said today.

A land mine exploded under a US vehicle south of the Afghan capital of Kabul today, killing four soldiers in the deadliest incident for American troops there in almost 10 months, the military said.

Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections face delay after the government failed to resolve issues including the voting system for its first post-Taliban legislature ahead of a key deadline, the United Nations said today.

US President George Bush today appointed John Negroponte the first US national intelligence director, citing his career in foreign service as key to his appointment.

The US military today freed about 80 prisoners held in Afghanistan in a step which could help persuade Taliban supporters to give up their fight.

Taliban militants attacked a government office in southern Afghanistan, sparking a gunbattle that left five people dead, including a rebel commander, an Afghan official said today.

The United States has created a ”lawless enclave” at a military base in Cuba where more than 600 men from 44 countries are being held without access to American courts, a lawyer for the men told the Supreme Court today.

President George Bush has named John Negroponte, the United States’ top diplomat at the United Nations, as the US ambassador to Iraq.

A former Muslim chaplain at the US military prison for terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been charged with disobeying orders by improperly handling classified information.

US ambassador Nancy Powell has said there is “a strong possibility” terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan’s remote tribal regions on the border with Afghanistan, it was reported today.

An American who became a peace activist after her sister was killed in one of the planes hijacked on September 11 is in Baghdad to meet Iraqis who lost loved ones in the 1991 Gulf War.

Afghanistan has again established itself as the world’s largest opium poppy producer, with growers taking advantage of a power vacuum during the US-led war and the collapse of the Taliban regime, the UN drug control agency said today.

Hardline Islamic rule will return to Afghanistan once US military forces are driven from the country, according to a statement purported to have been written by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Through an archway hung with musty drapes, in a gallery of photographs from a distant place, Afghan visitors sit in quiet solitude and record their thoughts about September 11.

An explosion at a construction company that killed 25 people and destroyed dozens of homes was today believed to be the work of al Qaida terrorists.

UP TO 15 people were reported dead yesterday after guerillas attacked an Afghan army base south of Kabul.

A bus crowded with Afghan families returning to their homeland after years in Pakistani refugee camps plunged into the Kabul River, killing 67 people, Afghan and UN officials said today.

Automatic gunfire from a compound housing Afghan militiamen struck ‘‘very close’’ to patrolling German peacekeeping soldiers in the first such incident in more than a month, the UN peacekeeping force said today.

Thousands of Afghans from the same ethnic group as the now-defunct Taliban regime are fleeing parts of northern Afghanistan, according to the United Nations

The highest-ranking member of the Taliban under US custody was being held aboard a warship today, and Afghanistan’s interim prime minister vowed that fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar will be arrested eventually.

A British munitions expert says he has found chemical weapons ready for firing in a Taliban government building.

A doctor appointed the deputy premier of Afghanistan's post-Taliban government has spoken of her hopes for peace.