Five Afghan police officers have been killed in an attack on a checkpoint in the southern province of Kandahar, officials said today.

Six private security guards were beheaded during a bank robbery in northern Afghanistan, police said today.

Twenty-four Taliban militants died in clashes with Afghan and foreign troops in southern Afghanistan it was revealed today. The insurgents were believed to be responsible for an attack on a road-building project days earlier.

A suicide bombing at an outdoor dog fighting competition killed 80 people and wounded scores more today, an Afghan governor said, in what appeared to be the deadliest terror attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.