At least three people were killed in Afghanistan today when police opened fire to disperse thousands of anti-American demonstrators.

A suicide bomber has killed at least 20 people outside a shrine in Kabul during an unprecedented wave of violence against minority Shiites in Afghanistan.

A SUICIDE car bomber attacked a health clinic in eastern Afghanistan yesterday as women and children lined up for maternity care and vaccinations, killing at least 35 people in one of the deadliest attacks against civilians this year.

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.

Two protesters have died and four were injured as Afghans protested for a third day 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.

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 massive bomb killed 25 people including 13 primary school pupils in central Afghanistan today.

A New York Times reporter is free after more than seven months in captivity in Afghanistan and the newspaper said he and an Afghan journalist escaped from the militants holding them by climbing over a wall.

Nearly 3,000 American soldiers who arrived in Afghanistan to secure two violent provinces have begun operations and are already seeing combat.

US SENATOR John McCain said yesterday that the situation in Afghanistan will get more difficult before it gets easier — “just like the surge in Iraq was” — as the US prepares to pour thousands more troops into the country, including on the doorsteps of Kabul.

MILITANTS brandishing assault rifles ambushed a US relief organisation’s vehicle south of Kabul, killing three Western aid workers and their Afghan driver and leaving their white SUV riddled with hundreds of bullets, officials said.

An Islamic militant ambush near Kabul on a US aid organisation’s vehicle killed three women, an American, a Canadian-British national and a Trinidadian, officials said.

An Irish national has reportedly been shot dead during an attack on a group of female aid workers in Afghanistan.

A suicide bomber on a bicycle attacked Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan today, an Afghan official said.

A TOP NATO general said yesterday that an offensive aimed at driving Taliban militants from their safe havens in southern Afghanistan has been “successfully completed”, even as suicide bombers struck military convoys, wounding six soldiers.

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.

Two Turkish engineers and an Afghan have been kidnapped outside Kabul, an official said today, bringing to five the number of workers who have been taken hostage in Afghanistan in the past three days.

Afghan soldiers have discovered a video tape related to Osama bin Laden in a village south of Kabul, officials said today.

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

Kabul’s markets opened as usual today, just hours after the US military strikes, as people emerged from their homes to survey the effects.