A roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan has killed a district police chief, officials said.

TALIBAN fighters beat musicians, shaved their heads and left them tied to trees overnight because they performed at an Afghan wedding, a village tribal chief said, a sign of the fighters’ growing influence.

AMERICAN warplanes pounded a suspected Taliban safe haven in the mountainsides of southern Afghanistan in an assault that left up to 60 insurgents, five policemen and seven Afghan soldiers dead and five US soldiers wounded, officials said.