A suicide bombing at an outdoor dog fighting competition killed 80 people and wounded scores more today, an Afghan governor said, in what appeared to be the deadliest terror attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Taliban militants beheaded seven policemen after overrunning their checkpoints in southern Afghanistan today, officials said.

At least 50 Taliban have been killed by Afghan, US and Canadian troops in a huge battle outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

A clash between police and insurgents left one suspected militant dead in the southeast, while Taliban militants kidnapped a local leader from his home and shot him to death, officials said today.

Al-Qaida today posted a video showing what it claimed to be an attack by its fighters seizing a US-Afghan post in southern Afghanistan, in what experts said was a step-up in the terror group’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda.

Al-Qaida has released a video showing what they claimed to be an insurgent attack on a military position of US and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan.

One Nato soldier and about 57 insurgents were killed in four separate attacks in southern Afghanistan, officials said today.

AFGHAN security forces have captured Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar’s personal security chief as he travelled in a van to the southern city of Kandahar, provincial officials said yesterday.

US jets bombarded the centre of the Afghan capital, Kabul, and residents said a strike that hit homes killed at least five civilians - including a 16-year-old girl and four in one family who lived near a Taliban tank unit.