Avalanches have killed at least 29 people in Afghanistan’s mountainous north east as rescuers struggled to reach the worst-hit areas cut off by heavy snow.

AFGHAN police have rescued a teenage girl who was beaten and locked up in a toilet for over five months after she defied her in-laws who tried to force her into prostitution, officials said.

Afghan government officials have approved a multimillion-dollar contract to mine the wealth of gold under the mountains of northern Afghanistan.

Thousands of Afghans were protesting today over suspended plans by a small American church to burn the Koran.

A Briton, six Americans and another foreigner on a medical mission were shot and killed by the Taliban who ambushed their vehicles in a remote part of northern Afghanistan, a charity said today.

The bodies of 10 people, including eight foreigners, were recovered today in a remote area of Badakhshan province in northern Afghanistan, police said.

A SUICIDE car bomber killed at least eight people in the Afghan capital yesterday and a Taliban rocket hit the presidential palace grounds as violence surged across the country ahead of tomorrow’s cliffhanger election.

A strong earthquake has hit north-eastern Afghanistan, a quake that rattled the capital Kabul for about a minute, according to officials.

Three gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying police and government employees, killing 12 in north-eastern Afghanistan, police said today.

A MASS grave containing hundreds of bodies has been discovered in an underground prison north of the Afghan capital, the BBC reported last night.

A 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit a remote and mountainous area of north-east Afghanistan today, shaking buildings in the capital and as far away as Pakistan, Tajikistan and India.

A roadside bomb hit a convoy of Nato peacekeepers in north-eastern Afghanistan on Friday, damaging one vehicle but hurting no one, an official said.

Police and government officials are today struggling to assess the level of damage from a powerful earthquake that rocked the northern fringe of Afghanistan, but said initial reports indicated it was relatively light.

Newsweek magazine has apologised to readers for errors in a story alleging US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran. The accusations, which the magazine vowed to re-examine, spawned protests in Afghanistan that left 15 dead and scores injured.

Newsweek magazine has apologised for errors in a story alleging that interrogators at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Koran, saying it would re-examine the accusations, which sparked outrage and deadly protests in Afghanistan.

A GROUP of Afghan Muslim clerics threatened yesterday to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it hands over military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Koran.

A convoy carrying Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s vice presidential running-mate came under attack today in north-eastern Afghanistan, the presidential palace said.

A powerful earthquake jolted the remote Hindu Kush mountains along Afghanistan’s northeast border with Pakistan early today.

Twenty people were killed and forty wounded in battles between rival armed factions in north-eastern Afghanistan, state television reported today.