The brother and successor of dead Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah said in a television interview that he had received a letter from al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden expressing condolences for his brother's death.

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 newly-named top field commander has used his first public statement today to warn that new recruits were volunteering as suicide bombers and that Taliban fighters would continue their holy war until Western powers leave Afghanistan.