Insurgents launched a rare ground assault against Nato’s main military base in southern Afghanistan today, wounding several international service members in the second such attack on a major military installation this week.

THE war in Afghanistan will get worse before it gets better, President Barack Obama said yesterday, but he declared his plan to begin withdrawing US forces next year remains on track.

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.

An Afghan human rights group said today that at least 88 people, including 20 women, were killed in a joint Afghan-US coalition military operation in western Afghanistan.

France confirmed today it will send up to 1,000 extra troops to fight in Afghanistan.

A British soldier killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan was named by the Ministry of Defence today as Major Alexis Roberts, serving with 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles.

US-led coalition and Afghan troops killed up to 21 suspected Taliban militants in three separate clashes in southern Afghanistan, and a roadside blast killed four Afghan soldiers in the east.

A roadside bomb hit a Nato vehicle in southern Afghanistan, killing six soldiers and their Afghan interpreter, Nato said in a statement.

US-led coalition air strikes in southern Afghanistan left at least 30 people, including women and children, killed or wounded, an official said today.

Gun battles and a bomb attack across Afghanistan killed seven Afghan security force members and 15 suspected militants, while police recaptured a district that had been taken over by the Taliban in the volatile south, officials said today.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai ordered the body of a slain top Taliban commander to be exchanged for the release of five Afghan health workers kidnapped in the country’s south, an official said today.

A “complex” ambush involving a suicide car bomb and militant gunfire killed 16 Afghan civilians and wounded 25 people during an attack on a coalition convoy in eastern Afghanistan today, officials said.

Nato today said as many as 150 insurgents were killed in a battle in eastern Afghanistan after two large groups of fighters crossed the border from Pakistan.

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

Nato said two of its soldiers were killed in southern Afghanistan today after militants ambushed the soldiers with rocket propelled grenades and gunfire.

A suicide bomber on a bicycle attacked Canadian troops handing out sweets to children in southern Afghanistan today, killing four Nato soldiers and wounding many others, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast.

More than 40 suspected Taliban fighters and one Nato soldier have been killed during fierce fighting in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said today.

Warplanes dropped bombs on suspected Taliban fighters hiding in orchards in a major Afghan-Nato offensive that the alliance said killed more than 200 militants in southern Afghanistan. Four Canadian soldiers were killed.

Soaring violence in southern Afghanistan has claimed the lives of scores of militants, as well as five Afghan security forces and a British soldier.

NATO will double the number of troops in southern Afghanistan when it takes over security from US forces there next month in an attempt to quash the worst rebel violence since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the force’s commander said today.

US-led coalition forces captured a militant fighter with only one leg in a battle this week in southern Afghanistan, and it was possible the militant could be top Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah, an Afghan general said today.

Gun battles, mine blasts and US air strikes on the day of Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban election left 38 people dead today, including three police officers escorting freshly filled ballot boxes, Afghan officials said.