A new audio tape said to be by Osama bin Laden urges Muslims to carry out suicide attacks and to rise up against Arab governments that have supported the US-led war in Iraq.

Afghanistan opened its grand council to choose a new government today, shortly after the nation’s former president bowed out of the race for head of state, removing the last major challenger to interim leader Hamid Karzai.

Afghanistan's defence minister says there are sharp differences with the UN and even within the new government over the role of the peace-keeping force.

Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai is holding talks with top figures in his interim government after slipping into the capital Kabul.

The leader of Afghanistan's new interim government is offering an amnesty to Taliban fighters who surrender.

Afghanistan's interim administration will include one woman, says the Northern Alliance.

Four Afghan factions have agreed on a framework for a post-Taliban administration.

The United Nations presented a draft deal on Afghanistan’s political future today, outlining terms for the Northern Alliance to transfer power as part of intense international efforts to secure peace and stability in the war-torn country.

US Marines were today patrolling the desert near the Taliban’s last stronghold after Afghan warriors said they would take the airport then seize the city itself.

The Northern Alliance says it is ready to transfer power to a UN-backed transitional council.

The Northern Alliance says it is ready to transfer power to a UN-backed transitional council.

Talks on Afghanistan’s political future moved into a decisive phase today, with pressure building on the Northern Alliance to agree to an interim administration.

The Northern Alliance is facing international pressure to break a deadlock in talks on Afghanistan's political future by coming up with names of people it wants in an interim administration.

Anti-Taliban Afghan tribesmen, supported by US bomb attacks, are reportedly advancing on the southern city of Kandahar today in an effort to rout the Taliban from its last remaining stronghold.

Afghans welcomed talks aimed at forming a broad-based, interim government today, and expressed overwhelming support for the exiled king as a leader the nation could unite behind.

Afghan factions today open talks on how to share power and secure peace once the Taliban are defeated.

Within the past half-hour it has been reported that foreign prisoners held by the Northern Alliance have seized weapons from their captors and started a gunfight.

The head of the Northern Alliance says he is prepared to hand over power in Afghanistan to an interim government.

The leader of Afghanistan’s opposition Northern Alliance, Burhanuddin Rabbani, has accepted an invitation from the UN to attend talks on the formation of a new Afghan Government.

American warplanes are striking Taliban positions outside the northern city of Kunduz, the Islamic militia's sole remaining stronghold in the north of Afghanistan.

Former president Burhanuddin Rabbani is in the Afghan capital for the first time since he was driven out in 1996.

The political head of the Afghan opposition says his fighters can handle the Taliban on their own and do not need troops sent in from other countries.

After four weeks of US bombing, a senior Taliban official said today that Afghan leaders were gearing up for a long war and challenged Washington to send in ground troops.

US warplanes resumed bombing early today on several Taliban positions in an effort to clear the way for advances by forces opposed to Afghanistan’s ruling movement.

The Northern Alliance today claimed opposition forces in Afghanistan have seized an outlying district of the strategic Taliban-held city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Helicopter gunships belonging to opposition troops fired rockets in the vicinity of the Kabul airport early today, hours after the devastating terrorist attacks in the United States, according to Taliban soldiers and eyewitnesses.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have imposed the death penalty on anyone who converts from Islam to another religion.