Two clear frontrunners have emerged in Afghanistan’s presidential election as partial results showed a tight race that appears destined for a run-off vote.

THIS year, Western troops will withdraw from Afghanistan after 13 years of war.

A young Afghan woman bank clerk has disappeared from her job in Kabul along with more than a million dollars.

Afghan officials say flash floods have killed at least 35 people in four eastern provinces, while an estimated 50 people are still missing.

Suicide attackers blew up a car bomb and battled security forces outside Afghanistan’s presidential palace today after infiltrating one of the most secure areas of the capital, Kabul.

A suicide bomber has targeted a provincial governor’s convoy near a hospital in southern Afghanistan.

Taliban suicide bombers blew up a car and stormed the traffic police headquarters in Kabul early today, setting off a gun battle which raged for six hours and left at least 10 people wounded, police said.

Afghan officials are meeting Taliban rebels and envoys from another Islamist militant group near Paris, looking beyond Afghanistan's uprising to a future long after international forces have returned home.

A suicide car bomber has killed two Afghan civilians and wounded 14 others near the main US military base in southern Afghanistan.

A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a mini-bus carrying foreign aviation workers to the airport in the Afghan capital early today, killing at least nine people in an attack a militant group said was revenge for an anti-Islam film that ridicules the Prophet Mohammed.

Formal control of Afghanistan's only large-scale US-run prison has been handed over to Kabul, even as disagreements between the two countries over the thousands of Taliban and terror suspects held there marred the transfer.

Seven children have died after their local water spring was booby trapped with a bomb aimed at Afghan police.

A suicide bomber has blown himself up in a wedding hall in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 23 people including a prominent warlord-turned-politician and three Afghan security force officials, in an attack that deals a setback to efforts to unify the nation’s ethnic factions, Afghan officials said.

An airstrike by the US-led Nato coalition has killed eight members of a family in eastern Afghanistan, local authorities have said.

An assassin yesterday shot dead a former high-ranking Taliban official working on reconciling Afghanistan’s insurgency with the government — a fresh blow to peace efforts on the day Kabul announced it was gradually taking the lead from the US-led coalition for providing security in much of the country.

The White House and the Pentagon voiced regrets today for newly published photographs that claim to show US troops posing with the bodies of dead insurgents in Afghanistan.

A US soldier has been officially charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder over a shooting rampage in Afghanistan, military officials said today.

Al-Qaida’s leader has lashed out at Afghan clerics and politicians who support the Kabul government in an audio message posted today.

The American soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers in a pre-dawn shooting rampage was named last night as Staff Sgt Robert Bales.

The American soldier accused of shooting dead 16 Afghan villagers in a pre-dawn rampage has been flown to Kuwait, it has emerged.

An Afghan man who crashed a stolen vehicle on to the runway at Camp Bastion as US defence secretary Leon Panetta arrived there has died of his injuries.

A vehicle drove onto the runway of the main British base in Afghanistan then burst into flames at around the same time the US Defence Secretary arrived there today.

Suspected insurgents opened fire yesterday on senior Afghan investigators of the massacre of 16 civilians by a lone US soldier, killing a member of their security detail, hours after the Taliban threatened to behead American troops to avenge Sunday’s killings.

Nato’s top military commander said today that an investigation into this week’s Koran burnings at a US base in Afghanistan is pushing ahead and urged Afghans to be patient and exercise restraint.

More than 2,000 angry Afghans have gathered outside a US airbase to protest against the inadvertent burning of Korans and other Islamic religious materials.

The Taliban have denied reports that they were about to hold talks with Afghan government officials.

Prominent Afghan opposition leaders said today that they support possible US-brokered peace negotiations with Taliban militants, but want to be part of any talks.

The Taliban’s political wing is ready to enter peace talks to end the war in Afghanistan, the group said today, but the insurgents will continue their armed struggle in the meantime.

An Afghan investigative commission has accused the US military of abusing detainees at its largest prison and said those held without evidence should be freed.

A Nato service member has died in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said today.

Two members of the French Foreign Legion have been shot dead by a soldier in the Afghan National Army.

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.

She was a national hero, an accomplished soldier, and champion parachutist, but bigotry and sexism have meant Khatool Mohammadzai has been forced on to the margins, write Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau

Afghan intelligence officials said today that they have broken up a cell which was plotting to kill President Hamid Karzai, arresting six people in Kabul whom they claimed were affiliated with al-Qaida and the Haqqani militant group.

AFGHANISTAN’S intelligence agency said last night it had thwarted a plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai after arresting a bodyguard and five people with links to the Haqqani network and al-Qaida.

The monthly average of armed clashes, roadside bombings and other violence in Afghanistan is running 39% ahead of last year’s figure, the United Nations reported, with more complex suicide operations involving multiple bombers and gunmen.

The monthly average of armed clashes, roadside bombings and other violence in Afghanistan is running 39% ahead of last year’s figure, the UN has reported, with more complex suicide operations involving multiple bombers and gunmen.

Afghanistan’s president has banned the country’s courts from being able to alter election results, a move that appeared aimed at ending months of uncertainty over the parliament’s legitimacy.

A suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle outside an Afghan hotel frequented by foreigners today, killing at least four guards.

The Taliban said today that they sent the suicide bomber who killed the mayor of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

Seven police officers have been poisoned and shot dead at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan, officials said today.

US General David Petraeus handed over command of American and coalition forces in Afghanistan to General John Allen today, transferring responsibility for the nearly 10-year war as Kabul’s international allies draw up exit plans from the conflict.

President Hamid Karzai acknowledged today that the US and Afghan governments have held talks with Taliban emissaries in a bid to end the nation’s nearly 10-year war, even as suicide attackers launched a bold assault in the heart of the county’s capital, killing nine people.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has confirmed that the U.S. is in peace talks with the Taliban.