THE former US lawmaker and hero of the film Charlie Wilson’s War, who championed covert CIA support for Afghans fighting Soviet troops in the 1980s, died at the age of 76 on Wednesday.

TEAMS of gunmen attacked three law enforcement facilities across the eastern city of Lahore yesterday, paralysing Pakistan’s cultural capital, while car bombs in two cities near the Afghan border killed 39 people in an escalating wave of terror.

A series of operations by US forces in eastern Afghanistan targeted an al-Qaida leader and a bomb-making cell, killing 19 militants, the coalition said today.

Nine people were killed in US missile strike on a Taliban-linked school in north-west Pakistan today.

Pakistani authorities have handed over to the United States a man thought to be the biggest catch yet in the war on terrorism.

Heavy fighting has erupted in south-east Afghanistan between a local tribal leader and a warlord loyal to Hamid Karzai’s interim administration.

The US is intensifying bombing raids on terrorist hideouts in eastern Afghanistan in a bid to smash Osama bin Laden's die-hard supporters.

US warplanes renewed air strikes against suspected terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan today amid reports al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had fled to Pakistan.