A Taliban leader has been killed in eastern Afghanistan, Nato said today – part of the coalition’s stepped-up campaign to capture and kill mid-level insurgent leaders and disrupt their supply lines.

TWO protesters died and four were injured as Afghans protested for a third day yesterday against a plan by an American pastor to burn copies of the Islamic holy book, despite his decision to call off the action.

One of two US sailors missing in Afghanistan since last week has been confirmed dead and his body recovered, a Nato spokesman said today.

The Taliban have offered to exchange the body of a US Navy member they said was killed in an ambush two days ago in exchange for insurgent prisoners, an Afghan official said today.

A senior Taliban commander disguised as a woman was killed by Afghan and international forces today after he opened fire with a pistol and tried to throw a grenade south of the capital Kabul.

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.

BOMB blasts killed four US marines in southern Afghanistan, where thousands of American troops have deployed in recent weeks as part of an offensive in the country’s dangerous drug-producing region, an official said yesterday.

A British aid worker killed in Afghanistan when her vehicle was ambushed was tonight named as Dr Jacqueline Kirk, the International Rescue Committee said.

A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-filled car into a two-vehicle convoy carrying foreigners south of the Afghan capital today, a police official said.

Nato leaders pledged at the end of a summit today to stay the course in Afghanistan despite mounting casualties and some governments’ refusal to send troops into combat in the most dangerous regions.

Two Nato soldiers were killed when their patrol vehicle hit a roadside bomb south of Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, the Western alliance said.

Afghan police killed 12 Taliban militants in a southern gun battle today, while more than 30 suspected insurgents were detained as security forces fought back against a deadly spike in violence, officials said.

A land mine exploded under a US vehicle south of the Afghan capital of Kabul today, killing four soldiers in the deadliest incident for American troops there in almost 10 months, the military said.

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have reportedly killed a leading figure from the country’s opposition in the Logar province, south of the capital, Kabul.