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.

Pakistani security forces have arrested the head of a militant Islamic group suspected in the kidnapping of three UN workers - including Irishwoman Annetta Flanigan - in Afghanistan in October.

Militants threatening to kill three UN hostages claimed today that talks to swap them for jailed comrades were progressing, even as an American general urged a tough line against the kidnappers. st week in police custody had been tortured.

An Afghan court has sentenced a man to death today for the 2001 killing of three foreign journalists and an Afghan colleague who were pulled from their cars, robbed and shot as they rushed to cover the collapse of the Taliban.

Negotiations on the fate of three UN workers, including an Irish woman, kidnapped in Afghanistan have snagged over ransom demands, officials said today.

The purported leader of Taliban-linked militants holding three United Nations hostages, including Armagh woman Annetta Flanigan, said his group was split over whether they should “get rid” of the captives.

Taliban-linked kidnappers of three UN election workers, including an Irish woman, claimed today that a deal could be close for their release.

The midnight deadline (7.30pm Irish time) set by Afghan militants threatening to kill three UN hostages, including Northern Ireland's Annetta Flanigan, has passed.

Afghan militants threatening to kill three UN hostages, including Northern Ireland's Annetta Flanigan, pushed back the deadline for their deaths until midnight today – 7.30pm Irish time.

Afghan militants threatening to kill three foreign hostages, including a woman from the North, today offered to negotiate with a UN envoy, but warned that any rescue attempt would end in bloodshed.

One Canadian soldier was killed and three were wounded today in an apparent suicide bombing in the Afghan capital of Kabul, the NATO-led security force said.

Government troops laid siege to three towns in southern Afghanistan where remnants of the Taliban were hiding, engaging in a fierce gunbattle that left at least 40 Taliban fighters and seven soldiers dead, a senior official said.

US-BACKED Afghan troops killed eight suspected Taliban and captured 15 others in fighting against extremists holed up in the Torghar mountains of southern Afghanistan, the US military said yesterday.

There are conflicting reports today over whether the interim Afghan government and the US Defence Department know the whereabouts of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

The United States and its allies were today moving to seal off potential escape routes - even at sea - for terror chief Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban have lost contact with Osama bin Laden and he is no longer under the militia’s control, the spokesman for the movement’s supreme leader said today.