The Afghan parliament has rejected the majority of president Hamid Karzai's second list of cabinet choices in a new setback for the beleaguered leader.

A series of operations by US forces in eastern Afghanistan targeted an al-Qaida leader and a bomb-making cell, killing 19 militants, the coalition said today.

A suicide attacker on foot blew himself up near a Nato convoy in southern Afghanistan today, seriously wounding three civilians, while a roadside bomb killed a policeman in the east, officials said.

A roadside bomb killed three Canadian Nato soldiers in southern Afghanistan today.

A gun battle and airstrikes killed an estimated 24 Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, the US-led coalition said today.