Seven police officers have been poisoned and shot dead at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan, officials said today.

A Taliban roadside bomb killed 15 civilians in a dangerous and remote region of southern Afghanistan.

AN Afghan official says a roadside bomb has killed 11 members of one family in southern Afghanistan.

Squads of US Marines and Afghan soldiers slowly pressed deeper into the Taliban stronghold of Marjah today, painstakingly clearing out booby-trapped houses one by one.

US Marines and Afghan soldiers stormed the Taliban-held town of Marjah today, as a major offensive began to break the extremists’ grip over a wide area of their southern heartland and re-establish government control.

About 300 families have already fled a southern Afghan town ahead of a major new offensive planned on a key Taliban stronghold, provincial officials said today.

Gunmen killed four Afghan policemen in a pre-dawn attack in southern Afghanistan today, an official said.

Armed assailants attacked a man and gouged out his eyes in front of his family during a gruesome assault in southern Afghanistan, officials said today.

US-led coalition forces and Afghan police killed 20 suspected Taliban in the latest fighting to hit southern Afghanistan, as NATO today prepared to take command in the insurgency-wracked region.