Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar today called on Afghanistan's neighbours to help his militants oust the government of President Hamid Karzai and force foreign troops out of the country.

President Hamid Karzai today offered to meet personally with Taliban leader Mullah Omar for peace talks and give the militants a high position in a government ministry as a way to end the rising insurgency in Afghanistan.

Coalition forces captured two suspected al-Qaida members during an early morning raid in eastern Afghanistan today, a military statement said.

Afghan insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar claimed in a rare interview with Pakistani television broadcast today that his fighters helped al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden escape intense US bombardment and a hunt in eastern Afghan mountains five years ago.

A top Taliban military commander described as a close associate of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar was killed in an airstrike this week close to the border with Pakistan, the US military said today.

Thousands of angry tribesmen and Islamists protested today across Pakistan against an airstrike that killed 80 people at a religious school near the Afghan border this week, as state TV aired video footage purportedly showing militants in training there before the attack.

Afghan police killed 12 Taliban militants in a southern gun battle today, while more than 30 suspected insurgents were detained as security forces fought back against a deadly spike in violence, officials said.

Pakistan has told the US military that an Arab al-Qaida operative who masterminded the London jetliner terror plot is hiding in mountainous terrain in north-eastern Afghanistan, an intelligence official said today.

Afghan militant leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said US troops will be driven out of Afghanistan and Iraq like they were in Somalia, according to a statement obtained today.

An Afghan warlord wanted by the United States declared support for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in a videotape broadcast today by Al-Jazeera television.

US Marines tracked down a band of insurgents in eastern Afghanistan and sparked a battle that left about 12 rebels and two American troops dead, the US military said today.

Iran has frozen four bank accounts belonging to renegade Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who is believed to have teamed up with Taliban rebels and al-Qaida militants, the chairman of a United Nations sanctions committee said.

US warplanes bombarded a remote village in eastern Afghanistan killing several people after a government office was attacked.

Two Britons working for a security company were killed today in an attack, claimed by the Taliban, while helping the UN prepare for landmark elections in Afghanistan.

Afghan police and international peacekeepers raided a compound in the capital Kabul early today and arrested eight men with suspected links to al-Qaida and a group loyal to a banned Afghan warlord, a spokesman for the peacekeepers said.

An intense manhunt will ultimately net the United States' Public Enemy Number One, Osama bin Laden, but there is no telling how long the hunt might take, the country’s top soldier said today.

In a new hunt for al-Qaida suspects, hundreds of Afghan and American soldiers today searched caves and forests in a mountainous region that borders Pakistan, where government troops also were preparing a crackdown.

The capture of Saddam Hussein could make it easier to catch the world’s other top fugitive – al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden – and dampen support for the growing insurgency in Afghanistan, allied officials in Kabul claimed.

SIX children were crushed to death by a collapsing wall during an assault by US forces on a weapons compound in eastern Afghanistan, an American military spokesman said yesterday.

US and Afghan soldiers killed about a dozen insurgents today and recaptured a key mountain pass in the south-east of the country, a local official said.

AFGHANISTAN celebrated its Independence Day yesterday amid one of the bloodiest weeks in a year, with heavily-armed guerrillas killing at least nine policemen.

INSURGENTS attacked a police headquarters in southeastern Afghanistan, sparking a battle yesterday that killed at least 15 fighters and seven Afghan police, a police chief said.

Hundreds of rebels in a convoy of trucks attacked a police headquarters in south-east Afghanistan today, triggering a gun battle that killed 22 people, officials said. It was one of the largest shows of anti-government force in over a year.

A BOMB tore through a minibus in southern Afghanistan yesterday, killing 17, half of them children, in the second deadly attack in less than a week to be blamed on Taliban guerrillas.

NATO took command of international peacekeepers tasked with enforcing security in the Afghan capital, heralding the 54-year-old alliance’s first mission outside Europe.

Insurgents fired a volley of rockets at a US base in south-east Afghanistan, prompting coalition forces to return fire with artillery, a US military spokesman said today.

A coalition convoy was ambushed in south-eastern Afghanistan, injuring two coalition troops and an Afghan soldier, the US military said today.

A coalition convoy was ambushed in south-eastern Afghanistan, injuring two coalition troops and an Afghan soldier, the US military said today.

A MASKED militant, speaking in a video filmed in a mud hut, warns of new al-Qaida suicide attacks and says Osama bin Laden's terror network carried out deadly bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

An Arabic-speaking guerrilla, his face wrapped in a black turban, said the al-Qaida terror network was behind suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco and warned of more attacks in a new videotape.

Suicide bombers are being trained to carry out attacks on foreign troops deployed in Afghanistan, the Interior Minister said today.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai today vowed to do everything he could to prevent terrorist attacks and protect foreigners in his country, two days after a suicide bomber killed four German peacekeepers.

Government troops laid siege to three towns in southern Afghanistan where remnants of the Taliban were hiding, engaging in a fierce gunbattle that left at least 40 Taliban fighters and seven soldiers dead, a senior official said.

American special forces killed five attackers after they were ambushed in eastern Afghanistan, a US military spokesman said today.

The United States and its allies have stepped up searches along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border for terrorists they fear may launch attacks should there be war against Iraq, intelligence sources say.

The alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, could also turn out to be the man who murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, a Pakistani intelligence official has said.

AFGHAN rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said he is proud that the US has branded him a terrorist and echoed Osama bin Laden’s call for suicide attacks against Americans, according to a statement released yesterday.

EIGHTEEN people travelling on a bus were killed yesterday when a powerful bomb destroyed a bridge in southern Afghanistan.

ABOUT 200 US special forces and their allies were battling rebels in southeast Afghanistan yesterday in the heaviest fighting since Operation Anaconda nine months ago.

Coalition forces are fighting a pitched battle against a group of 80 rebel forces aligned to renegade leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the largest-scale fighting in nine months, the US military said today.

Police in Kabul today arrested an Iraqi man carrying explosives who they suspect was planning a suicide bomb attack on Afghanistan’s defence minister.

US special forces have destroyed a drug-production lab and seized documents allegedly tying the site to a fugitive warlord on the United States' most wanted list.

US and Afghan officials believe the assassination attempt against Afghan president Hamid Karzai was probably the work of fugitive members of the country’s ousted Taliban regime rather than al-Qaida terrorists, defence officials have said.

AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai yesterday insisted that the deadly car-bombing in Kabul and a bid to assassinate him the same day “do not indicate any problems”.