Unmanned US aircraft fired four missiles at a house in north-west Pakistan today, killing 16 suspected militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Afghanistan’s president has called on the Taliban to give up their weapons, saying that the group and its leader should join the political process.

The Taliban in Afghanistan has denied reports that their leader Mullah Omar wrote to the US President Barack Obama last year calling for talks to end the war.

AFGHANISTAN will accept a Taliban liaison office in Qatar to start peace talks, but no foreign power can get involved in the process without its consent, the government’s peace council said, as efforts gather pace to find a solution to the decade-long war.

A suicide car bomber attacked Shiite Muslims in south-west Pakistan today at the start of an Islamic holiday, killing at least 10 people, officials said.

The Taliban has said Mullah Omar is alive, accusing the Americans of hacking their phones after a text message sent to media from a spokesman's phone said the leader was dead.

The killing of Osama bin Laden may weaken al-Qaida’s influence on the Afghan Taliban, the US military commander in Afghanistan has said.

THOSE who lived near Osama bin Laden’s final hideaway said the terror chief and his family rarely strayed from the house, and most of the neighbours were not aware foreigners were living there.

Taliban militants determined to scuttle Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections showered rockets on cities today as men and women voted in a key test of the government’s ability to fight insurgents and entrenched corruption.

Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai is seeking US backing for faster negotiations with Taliban leaders who were in power during the September 11 attacks.

The Taliban says it is moving fighters into Kandahar, planting bombs and plotting attacks as Nato and Afghan forces prepare for a summer showdown with militants.

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai said he wants Pakistan to hand over a captured Taliban commander to his country.

Four men linked to al Qaida were jailed today over a foiled plot to attack US targets in Germany that could have caused massive devastation.

Afghanistan’s president appealed to Taliban fighters to lay down their weapons and accept Afghan laws as the government and its international allies pushed a programme to entice militants away from the insurgency.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said today he will talk to Taliban heads in an attempt to broker a peace if he gets backing from the West.

THE Taliban’s reclusive leader has ruled out talks with President Hamid Karzai and called on Afghans to break off relations with his “stooge” administration.

Alleged terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed called the September 11 attack a “noble victory” and branded President Barack Obama a liar in a letter released by the US military’s war crimes court.

A remote-controlled bomb targeting a police convoy killed 12 people today in western Afghanistan, a day after three American soldiers died in a complex militant ambush in the country’s east.

The top United Nations official in Afghanistan called today for talks with Taliban leaders at the highest level, another indication that parts of the international community are reaching out to the radical Islamist movement.

A new Taliban code of military conduct that tells fighters to limit suicide attacks and avoid killing civilians is a sham that doesn’t reflect the true nature of the insurgents, Nato and Afghan officials said.

Four men accused of a foiled German terror plot were fuelled by hatred and aimed to cause destruction on the scale of September 11, a court heard today.

Taliban leader Mullah Muhammed Omar is not in Pakistan’s south-western Baluchistan province and the US should not carry out missile attacks in the region, a senior official said.

Afghan and Nato troops killed 15 suspected militants during clashes in southern Afghanistan, where authorities also arrested a senior Taliban commander, officials said today.

A top Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan has been dismissed for disobeying the militant group’s rules.

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.

THE US military has launched a new “Most Wanted” campaign offering rewards of up to $200,000 (€141,500) for information leading to the capture of 12 Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.

AN IRISHWOMAN serving with the US Army in Afghanistan has been killed while on duty.

The Taliban will “never” negotiate with Afghan authorities until US and Nato forces leave the country, a spokesman for the group said today, again rebuffing an overture for peace talks from President Hamid Karzai.

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.

The German Interior Ministry today said the Islamic Jihad Union militant group has taken responsibility for planning foiled terror bombings in Germany, adding that the US air base at Ramstein was a target as well as US and Uzbek consulates in Germany.

The Afghan army today dropped leaflets warning of impending military action in the region where Taliban militants are holding 21 South Koreans, though the army said the upcoming operation is not connected to the hostages.

A man accused of raising money for al-qaida in Iraq and helping to supply foreign fighters for the insurgency there went on trial today in Germany.

An al-Qaida front group broadcast a video in Iraq today showing dozens of masked men singing religious and patriotic songs and brandishing automatic weapons as they praised Osama bin Laden and the leader of the Taliban.

The brother and successor of dead Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah said in a television interview that he had received a letter from al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden expressing condolences for his brother's death.

The Taliban’s newly-named top field commander has used his first public statement today to warn that new recruits were volunteering as suicide bombers and that Taliban fighters would continue their holy war until Western powers leave Afghanistan.

Taliban leader Mullah Omar said the killing of its top field commander in Afghanistan “won’t create problems” for the hard-line militia, a spokesman said today.

THE Taliban’s most prominent military commander, a one-legged fighter who orchestrated an ethnic massacre and a rash of beheadings, was killed in a US-led military operation in southern Afghanistan, officials said yesterday.

Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban’s most prominent military commander, was killed in fighting in southern Afghanistan with Afghan and Nato troops, officials said today.

The US Defence Department announced the capture of one of al-Qaida’s most senior and most experienced operatives, an Iraqi who was trying to return to his native country when he was captured.

A grisly video circulating in Pakistan allegedly shows a child beheading Ghulam Nabi, a Pakistani militant accused of betraying a top Taliban official killed in a December air strike in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has arrested former Taliban defence minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, regarded as a top figure in the Afghan insurgency, a Pakistani intelligence official said.

US Vice President Dick Cheney today sought Pakistan’s help in countering al-Qaida’s efforts to regroup in its remote border region.

Nato-led troops and Afghan forces detained a prominent Taliban commander during a raid on a compound in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said today.