Rocket fire prevented a plane carrying UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and Sweden’s foreign minister from landing at Kabul airport in Afghanistan, officials said today.

Up 44 people are missing after a passenger plane crashed in a remote area of Afghanistan today.

Five UN workers were kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan today in the same northern province where four German soldiers were killed.

NEWLY freed South Korean church workers apologised to their government yesterday for causing trouble in Afghanistan by being kidnapped by the Taliban for six weeks.

A US civilian escaped an attempt to abduct him in the Afghan capital today, throwing himself from a moving car after his armed attackers had forced him into the trunk, officials and witnesses said.

Afghan authorities have completed their search for the bodies of more than 100 people who died last month when an airliner slammed into a mountain during a snowstorm, an official said today.

Nato soldiers found human remains, but no survivors, in the wreckage of an Afghan airliner, days after it struck a snowbound peak with 104 people on board.

Nato troops reached the wreckage of an Afghan airliner today, four days after it crashed into a snowy mountain peak, and began the gruesome task of searching for survivors among the 104 people on board.

A Nato helicopter searching for an Afghan jet that disappeared during a snowstorm with 104 people aboard, found what appears to be the wreckage of the plane today in the forbidding mountains east of the capital, officials said.

Hamid Karzai was sworn in today as Afghanistan’s first popularly-elected president, opening a new chapter for the country while warning that the wars against terrorism and drugs will require sustained international help.

THREE Americans accused of torturing Afghans in a private jail were jailed for up to ten years yesterday after a trial denounced by the defence as failing to meet basic international standards of fairness.

FORCES of a northern warlord overran the capital of a remote Afghan province yesterday, the interior minister said, in a burst of factional violence undermining the authority of US-backed President Hamid Karzai.

Six members of the Afghan military were killed today when a bomb ripped apart their car in the capital Kabul.

Investigators are trying to find out why a military helicopter crashed in flames in Afghanistan over the weekend, killing seven German peacekeepers.

GERMAN military aviation experts arrived in the Afghan capital Kabul yesterday to investigate the cause of a helicopter crash which killed all seven German peacekeepers on board.

An international peacekeeping force helicopter crashed near Kabul airport today, killing four peacekeepers and two civilians on the ground, Kabul Police Chief Bashir Salangi said.

An assassin was intercepted in the Afghan capital Kabul when his car, loaded with explosives, was involved in a traffic accident.

Two French members of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan were seriously injured yesterday while clearing mines near the Kabul airport, an official said.

Two gunmen firing assault rifles assassinated Afghan vice president Abdul Qadir as he was being driven from a government ministry in the capital, Kabul, today.

Gunmen opened fire on French peacekeepers patrolling the Afghan capital of Kabul, slightly injuring one soldier, a peacekeeper said today.

Mohammad Zaher Shah, Afghanistan’s deposed king, ended 29 years in exile today, arriving at Kabul airport to a crowd of dignitaries and an honour guard.

Afghanistan’s civil aviation and tourism minister was attacked and killed at the Kabul airport by Muslim pilgrims angry over flight delays to the Islamic holy city of Mecca, the interim government confirmed today.

The Afghan minister for civil aviation, Abdul Rahman, was killed at Kabul airport tonight when a crowd of pilgrims angry over delays in travelling to Mecca for the Muslim pilgrimage attacked him, government sources said.

America would like to take over the Afghan capital, Kabul by next Winter according to US Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

US warplanes are now striking the targets in Afghanistan they have so far missed.

Four people are reported to have died following another night of air strikes on Afghanistan.

In the biggest attack so far against Kabul, US jets pounded the Afghan capital tonight.

US warplanes began a fourth straight night of attacks as soon as darkness fell in Afghanistan.

There are reports that anti-aircraft fire has been heard for the fourth straight night in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Helicopter gunships belonging to opposition troops fired rockets in the vicinity of the Kabul airport early today, hours after the devastating terrorist attacks in the United States, according to Taliban soldiers and eyewitnesses.