Afghan intelligence officials said today that they have broken up a cell which was plotting to kill President Hamid Karzai, arresting six people in Kabul whom they claimed were affiliated with al-Qaida and the Haqqani militant group.

A roadside bomb has killed at least 20 passengers travelling on a minibus in western Afghanistan, police said.

Suicide bombers hit a training area for the new Afghan Local Police force in the country’s east today, killing two trainees and a policeman.

AN investigation into claims international troops killed scores of civilians in northeast Afghanistan escalated into a feud between President Hamid Karzai and senior US military officials who cited a report that Afghan parents have been known to discipline children by burning their hands and feet.

US diplomatic cables revealed today portray Afghanistan as rife with corruption to the highest levels of government, with tens of millions of dollars flowing out of the country and a cash transfer network that facilitates bribes for corrupt Afghan officials, drug traffickers and insurgents.

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.

THE Taliban is negotiating a peace deal with a Pakistani tribe in the northwest, tribal elders said yesterday, that could give militants access to remote strategic areas on the Afghan border.

Nato helicopter attacked a Pakistani security post near the Afghan border today, killing three troops, officials in Pakistan said.

Two US Navy service members disappeared in a dangerous area of eastern Afghanistan, prompting a massive search and appeals for their safe return, Nato and Afghan officials said today.

Two US troops are missing in eastern Afghanistan, a military official said today.

Six American service members and at least a dozen civilians died in attacks today in Afghanistan’s volatile east and south, adding to a summer of escalating violence as Taliban militants push back against stepped-up operations by international and Afghan forces.

NATO today launched airstrikes against Taliban insurgents who had forced government forces to abandon a district in eastern Afghanistan.

At least a dozen people were killed south of the Afghan capital of Kabul after US troops spotted two insurgents trying to plant bombs, an Afghan official said.

The UN-backed commission investigating fraud in Afghanistan's election issued its first orders today to exclude some ballots from the final tally.

Two roadside bombs tore through a convoy carrying private security guards, killing 10 of them in eastern Afghanistan, an official confirmed today.

Dozens of insurgents in eastern Afghanistan were killed in a battle today after more than 100 attacked a government centre near the border with Pakistan, officials said.

TALIBAN militants attacked a police checkpoint in the south and killed 16 officers, officials said yesterday.

Calling militant attacks “cowardly work,” Afghan President Hamid Karzai today deplored a suicide bombing that killed 12 schoolchildren and accused militants of running from battle by donning women’s clothing.

Suspected Taliban militants attacked a local police commander’s home early today, killing five of his family members and sparking a gun battle with police that left 10 insurgents dead, an official said.

A suicide bomber blew himself up today in an eastern Afghan city, killing six civilians and wounding 40 others, officials said, while a blast in a nearby market killed a shopkeeper.

The new governor of Afghanistan’s largest opium-producing province today said he supports a US-backed plan to spray herbicide on lucrative poppy fields, and that he will ask Taliban fighters to support the government.

A roadside bomb exploded next to a police patrol in southern Afghanistan today, killing five policemen, an official said.

A suicide car bomber rammed into an Afghan and Nato convoy today, killing an Afghan soldier and a civilian while a second suicide bomber disguised in a burqa injured two Afghan soldiers in a nearby province, officials said.

AMERICAN soldiers in Kabul who witnessed the attack on the Pentagon paid tribute yesterday to victims of the 9/11 attacks.

A suicide attacker today detonated a bomb in eastern Afghanistan at the funeral of a provincial governor who had died in another suicide blast.

Investigators in Afghanistan have arrested several members of a criminal gang suspected of luring dozens of drivers to houses before killing them, stealing their vehicles and hiding their bodies in at least three locations, officials said today.

At least 16 people, many of them children, were killed in explosions at the office of a US security contractor in Afghanistan’s capital and a school in the south east as the country moves towards its first post-Taliban election.

A powerful explosion wrecked an office of an American security house in Kabul today, killing up to six people, officials said.

An explosion ripped through a school in south-eastern Afghanistan, killing nine children and one adult, the United States military said today.

The US military said today it killed four militants who attacked a convoy in eastern Afghanistan, but an Afghan official said the victims were police officers gunned down after a mix-up.

SIX children were crushed to death by a collapsing wall during an assault by US forces on a weapons compound in eastern Afghanistan, an American military spokesman said yesterday.

The UN refugee agency began pulling foreign staff out of large swathes of southern and eastern Afghanistan today in the wake of the killing of a French worker, a decision that could affect tens of thousands of Afghan returnees.

THE United States plans to increase spending significantly in Afghanistan in a show of support for President Hamid Karzai, a US administration official said yesterday.

Concerns persist about security at Afghanistan’s borders and terrorists’ infiltration of the country, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today.

Insurgents fired a volley of rockets at a US base in south-east Afghanistan, prompting coalition forces to return fire with artillery, a US military spokesman said today.

Three Afghans released after months of captivity at a US military base in Cuba today said they were chained up during frequent interrogations but generally treated well by their American captors.

Coalition forces detained four men after several rocket-propelled grenades were fired at a US special operations forces base in eastern Afghanistan, a US military spokesman said today.

A US soldier has been charged with assaulting an Afghan detainee.

AFGHAN officials yesterday said a US helicopter attack on a village 75 miles south of Kabul killed one civilian and wounded two others. The US military denied the report.

Hundreds of US and allied Afghan fighters swept into the mountains of eastern Afghanistan today, moving tanks into position for a final push to eradicate al-Qaida fighters making a last stand.

Hundreds of weary US soldiers descended from the Afghan mountains after a gruelling eight-day battle against enemy holdouts. US bombers pounded the caves where the remaining fighters were hiding.

US fighter jets pounded the mountains of eastern Afghanistan today, unleashing a massive barrage intended to wipe out any remnants of al-Qaida fugitives hiding in the region’s caves.

The major fighting is over in the week-long operation to clear al-Qaida and Taliban forces from eastern Afghanistan, the US Army confirms.

Driving winds and snow forced al-Qaida holdouts to retreat into caves in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan today as US forces pushed ahead in the biggest US-led military offensive of the Afghan war.