Gunmen kidnapped an American aid worker and her driver as they travelled through southern Afghanistan early today, a provincial governor said.

Afghan and Nato forces clashed with Taliban militants in a dangerous southern region overnight, leaving 33 Afghanis dead, the provincial governor said today.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai ordered the body of a slain top Taliban commander to be exchanged for the release of five Afghan health workers kidnapped in the country’s south, an official said today.

THE Taliban’s most prominent military commander, a one-legged fighter who orchestrated an ethnic massacre and a rash of beheadings, was killed in a US-led military operation in southern Afghanistan, officials said yesterday.

A suicide bomber detonated explosives next to Afghan soldiers in an eastern market today, killing one soldier and wounding three, an official said.

A suicide bomber drove up to an American convoy in eastern Afghanistan and blew himself up today, leaving one Afghan civilian dead and two others wounded, police said.

Airstrikes by Nato helicopters hunting Taliban fighters ripped through three dried mud homes in southern Afghanistan as villagers slept, killing at least nine civilians, including women and children, said residents and the provincial governor.

NATO will double the number of troops in southern Afghanistan when it takes over security from US forces there next month in an attempt to quash the worst rebel violence since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the force’s commander said today.

US-LED coalition aircraft killed up to 80 suspected Taliban militants in a night airstrike on a rebel stronghold in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said yesterday.

US-led coalition aircraft killed up to 80 suspected Taliban militants in a night airstrike on a rebel stronghold in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said today. The local governor said 16 civilians also died.

Afghan security forces backed by coalition helicopters attacked a suspected Taliban hideout in southern Afghanistan, sparking an intense gun battle that left 41 rebels dead and several others wounded, a provincial governor said today.

Suspected Taliban militants with explosives strapped to their bodies blew themselves up in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar today after they were challenged by police.

Police retrieved the bodies of four men believed to be Macedonians kidnapped in southern Afghanistan but the convoy carrying the remains was later hit by a roadside bomb today, a provincial governor said.

A MAN on a motorbike drove up to a crowd watching a wrestling match in an Afghan border town yesterday and detonated a bomb killing 20 people and wounding at least 30 others — the deadliest in a recent spate of attacks.

A suicide attacker on a motorbike killed 20 people and wounded more than 20 others today in the Afghan border town of Spinboldak.

A roadside bombing today near a convoy of Canadian troops on the outskirts of the southern city of Kandahar seriously wounded at least one Afghan civilian.