Taliban rebels today urged Afghans to boycott this weekend’s legislative elections that many are hoping will marginalise the insurgents, while a candidate was shot dead and four other people were killed in bombings near polling stations, officials said.

Armed police escorted trucks carrying ballots to polling stations today in preparation for weekend legislative elections in Afghanistan, as militant attacks kept tension high and a purported Taliban spokesman urged people to boycott the landmark vote.

Fighting in Afghanistan has left four suspected Taliban insurgents dead and two Afghan police wounded, the US military said today.

A US-led Chinook helicopter was destroyed by a fire that broke out as it made a “hard landing” with six crew and 25 Afghan troops on board, the US military said today. No one was hurt.

A ROADSIDE bomb wounded six US troops in the same mountainous area where a commando team was ambushed and a special forces helicopter shot down last month, the US military said yesterday.

A roadside bomb wounded six American troops in the same mountainous area where a commando team was ambushed and a special forces helicopter shot down last month, the US military said today.

Rebels attacked a US military medical team as it was helping villagers in the same region of eastern Afghanistan where a US airstrike that killed up to 17 civilians sparked sharp criticism from the government.

A second member of a US special operations team missing since last week has been located in a house in remote eastern Afghanistan and is wounded, the provincial governor said today, a day after another US soldier was rescued in the same area.

A member of an elite American military team missing in Afghan mountains since last week has been rescued and US forces are continuing to search for other members of the group still unaccounted for.

Warplanes pounded a suspected Taliban compound in the Afghan mountains near where an elite American military team was missing, while a transport plane flew home the bodies of 16 US troops killed when their special forces helicopter was shot down while trying to rescue the missing team, officials said.

US forces desperately scoured rugged Afghan mountains today for a small team of soldiers missing after fierce fighting that included the shooting down of a special forces helicopter with 16 troops aboard earlier this week, US officials said.

Rescuers have reached the wreckage of a US special forces’ helicopter that crashed into a rugged mountain ravine in eastern Afghanistan, but there was still no word on the fate of 17 troops on board, a US military spokesman said today.

Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network is regrouping and intends to bring Iraq-style bloodshed to Afghanistan, the nation’s defence minister said today, warning that the country could be in for several months of intense violence ahead of key legislative elections.

Ten Afghan civilians were killed when a bus collided with a US military vehicle today.

Afghanistan’s government claimed that al-Qaida and Taliban rebels launched a violent campaign last week to subvert landmark legislative elections with a deadly suicide bombing and a failed attempt to down a US military aircraft with a shoulder-launched missile.

A DEADLY suicide bombing at a mosque and an attempt to shoot down a US military aircraft with a shoulder-launched missile may signal the start of a campaign of violence by al-Qaida and Taliban rebels to destabilise Afghanistan’s legislative elections, President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman said yesterday.

A deadly suicide bombing at a mosque and an attempt to shoot down a US military aircraft with a shoulder-launched missile may signal the start of a campaign of violence by al-Qaida and Taliban rebels to destabilise Afghanistan’s legislative elections, President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman said today.

Fighting between insurgents and US-led coalition and Afghan forces in the country’s troubled east left 12 rebels dead and one US soldier slightly wounded, the US military said today.