UN aid worker Anetta Flanigan is preparing to fly home tonight after she and two other hostages were abandoned by their kidnappers.

Three UN workers - including Armagh's Annetta Flanigan - who were kidnapped in Afghanistan have been released unharmed after nearly four weeks in captivity, officials said today.

Afghan forces arrested three Americans on a freelance counter-terrorism mission after bursting into a private jail that the trio were allegedly running and finding prisoners hanging from their feet, officials said.

FORCES of a northern warlord overran the capital of a remote Afghan province yesterday, the interior minister said, in a burst of factional violence undermining the authority of US-backed President Hamid Karzai.

Forces of a northern strongman overran the capital of a remote Afghan province today in a burst of factional violence undermining the authority of US-backed President Hamid Karzai.

Celebratory gunfire erupted in Baghdad today and world leaders – including the war’s most prominent opponents – hailed the capture of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

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.

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

Afghan officials were today playing down a deadly shooting outside the American embassy in Kabul in which US Marines killed at least three Afghan troops.