Gunfire and explosions reverberated through Kabul today on the eve of the presidential election after three gunmen forced a shoot-out in a bank.

Afghan police rescued a German aid worker who was snatched while dining with her husband at a restaurant in the capital Kabul, and arrested four suspected kidnappers in the sting operation today, officials said.

A private Afghan television station today broadcast what it claimed was a video of a female German aid worker who was kidnapped a day earlier from a Kabul restaurant.

The signing of an agreement which will pave the way for the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan has been postponed until tomorrow, it was revealed this evening.