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.

Seven people were killed in clashes between Afghan security forces and protesters demonstrating against the burning of Muslim holy books at a Nato military base.

TWIN blasts at Afghan shrines on the Shi’ite holy day of Ashura left at least 59 people dead.

MILITARY targets will grow harder to hit and the risk of deadly errors will increase as Western nations pursue their air campaign over Libya, with no guarantee of stopping Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in their tracks.

AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai yesterday told US General David Petraeus, the commander of international troops, that his apology after nine children died in a NATO air strike was “not enough”.

In a holiday-season visit, President Barack Obama has told US troops in Afghanistan they are succeeding "in their vital mission fighting terrorism".

President Barack Obama told US troops during a surprise visit today that they are making important progress in the war, and he pledged Afghanistan would never again be a “safe haven for terrorists” who want to attack the United States.

AN Iraqi general has called into question whether his troops are ready to defend the country against a stubborn insurgency and external threats.

WINSTON Churchill was accused of covering up a close encounter between an RAF aircraft and a UFO during the Second World War.

US General David Petraeus today formally assumed command of the 130,000-strong international force in Afghanistan at a time of rising casualties and growing scepticism about the direction of the nearly nine-year-old war.

A suicide squad detonated bombs at a newly fortified prison, police headquarters and two other locations in Afghanistan today, killing at least 30 people in the largest city of the southern Taliban heartland.

Nato admitted accidentally killing at least 27 Afghan civilians today, the third attack this month to have hit the wrong target.

The international military effort in Afghanistan was under-resourced for years, the head of the British Army said today as US troops prepared to take over operations in an area which has seen some of the bloodiest fighting for British forces.

A lack of political will, not troop shortages, is stopping European countries increasing their forces in Afghanistan, the EU's top military officer declared today.

The top commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan has finished his 60-day strategic review of the war, officials said today.

Today’s suicide car bomb explosion in the Afghan capital Kabul killed four civilians and wounded 91 Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry spokesman said.

A line of Afghan schoolchildren walked past a military checkpoint as a bomb-loaded truck exploded, killing 14 youngsters in a heartbreaking scene captured by a US military security camera.

SHIPPING officials from around the world yesterday called for a military blockade along Somalia’s coast to intercept pirate vessels heading out to sea.

More helicopters and surveillance aircraft are needed in Afghanistan to support the armed forces there, a senior Nato official said today.

Afghan drugs police have uncovered 236 metric tonnes of hashish hidden in 6ft deep trenches in southern Afghanistan, in what they say appears to be the largest yet drug bust.

Peace talks are due to resume between Israel and Palestinians after they were abandoned over military action in Gaza.

The new commander of Nato-led troops in Afghanistan was installed in a ceremony in Kabul today.

US Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, formerly head of the US military command responsible for Guantanamo Bay, today takes over as Nato’s supreme allied commander in Europe.

British commander General David Richards, Nato’s top commander in Afghanistan, said today the country was at a crucial point – and warned Afghans would probably switch their allegiance to resurgent Taliban militants if there were no visible improvements in people’s lives in the next six months.

Nato’s top commander has renewed an appeal for allies to urgently provide up to 2,500 troops for the battle with the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

EFFORTS to reach stranded villagers in Pakistan’s northern mountains gathered pace yesterday after the country’s friends and foes both urged help for up to three million survivors rattled by fresh aftershocks.

Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited Baghdad today to review the alliance’s training mission for the Iraqi military.

US defence officials in Washington today confirmed that Abu Azzam, a leading deputy to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq, has been killed.

Belgium’s King Albert and other dignitaries marked the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge today, honouring thousands of American soldiers who died fighting Nazi Germany’s desperate bid to stop the Allied advance across Western Europe.

Film legend Harrison Ford has agreed to star in Hollywood's first movie about November's second Iraq conflict, The Battle of Fallujah.

THE young priest's vestments were crumpled from his travel case and his uneven hem revealed runners wet and muddied from the Normandy shore.

US warplanes and artillery attacked Sunni insurgents in a thunderous show of force that rocked Fallujah, sending huge plumes of black smoke into the night sky.

Mark Sage, New York

A man claiming to be a senior al Qaida figure that the US believes is operating in Iraq has released a tape calling for the country’s Sunni Muslims to fight Shiites and claiming responsibility for high-profile attacks there.

Pakistani agents staged a pre-dawn raid at an apartment complex today and arrested seven suspected foreign members of the al-Qaida terror group who had been living there for two months.

NATO is hastening preparations to create elite rapid response units as the alliance expands its reach to include peacekeeping in Afghanistan and, perhaps, Iraq, the top allied commander in Europe said today.

A US ARMOURED force punched into the heart of Baghdad yesterday and established a stronghold in one of President Saddam Hussein’s palaces, while troops in central Iraq found a cache of suspected Iraqi chemical weapons.

THE United States unveils a civil administration for postwar Iraq today, amid profound Arab suspicion about Washington's motives and widespread calls that the United Nations be given the job instead.

US-led coalition forces are making “rapid and in some cases dramatic” progress in Iraq but have also met sporadic resistance, US General Tommy Franks said today.

British and American troops were tightening the noose around a key city in southern Iraq tonight as Baghdad braced itself for yet another massive aerial bombardment.

The US military today confirmed it fired five cruise missiles at the base of a group it says was linked to al-Qaida in the mountains of north-east Iraq.

The US military has fired five missiles at the base of a group linked to al-Qaida in the mountains of north-east Iraq.

US General Tommy Franks, in his first briefing since the start of the war in Iraq, promised today that the campaign would be “unlike any other in history”.

Reports today claimed surrender talks with senior Iraqis were continuing this evening.