Afghan suicide attack kills 16, including 4 NATO soldiers

A Taliban suicide bomber killed 16 people, including 10 civilians and four NATO soldiers, in an attack in eastern Afghanistan Tuesday, officials said, as foreign troops wind down their war against the insurgents.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying one of its suicide bombers had blown himself up near a NATO patrol in the province of Parwan, north of the capital Kabul.

The attack comes as Afghanistan is mired in political crisis, with a bitter row raging over allegations of fraud in the presidential runoff election.

Nawaz meets British FM; Pakistan’s role against terror lauded

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met with British Foreign Minister William Hague in Islamabad on Thursday and discussed bilateral relations and regional situation, DawnNews reported.

Nawaz Sharif said that “Pakistan is with the international community to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan”.

Taliban attack: Three Indians killed, close shave for 50 others

The bodies of three Indian workers killed in Tuesday's Taliban attack on a guest house in Kabul are being flown home. While the families are shattered, top Indian government sources have told NDTV that it could have been much worse. Fifty other Indians were also in the same compound that was attacked; they are safe. Sources have told NDTV, however, that the attack was not targeted at Indians but at the foreign company and its links to supplying NATO.

The Indians worked at a Dubai based company's guest house. The company's personnel who also live in the guest house supplied food, water and fuel to NATO forces in Kabul.

Pakistan should hold talks with Taliban: Fazl

ISLAMABAD: Welcoming the initiation of Doha peace process, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Wednesday reiterated his desire that the Pakistan government should also hold talks with Taliban to bring peace and stability in the region.

“The use of force does not work all the time and in all situations,” said the JUI-F chief while talking to a group of reporters after his meeting with a delegation headed by the Special Representative of United Nations (UN) Secretary General on Afghanistan Jan Kubis.

Blast in Kabul ahead of NATO handover

An explosion has hit the Afghan capital Kabul near the parliament building, on a day NATO forces formally hand over security to national forces.

Tuesday's blast occurred at around 9am local time in an area called Karta-e Seh, a Kabul police source said.

It came as hundreds of local and international officials gathered on the capital's outskirts ahead of a ceremony to mark the beginning of the final phase of security transition to Afghan forces across the nation.

Militants attack Nato containers in Khyber; six killed

PESHAWAR: Six people were killed when militants attacked three Nato containers in Shagai area of Jamrud tehsil of the Khyber tribal region on Monday.

Security forces were engaged in a firefight with the militants who attacked the containers and set them on fire.

As a result, six people, including the drivers of the containers were killed.

Khyber is among Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous tribal districts near the Afghan border, rife with homegrown insurgents and home to a number of militant organisations.

Rasmussen rules out decision on future force size

BRUSSELS: As NATO defence ministers began a two-day meeting here on Tuesday, the alliance secretary-general ruled out an immediate decision on the number of troops that would stay in Afghanistan post 2014.

“I wouldn’t expect this meeting to make decisions on the exact number of troops and trainers after 2014,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters. NATO and ISAF defence ministers would adopt guidelines for the new mission in Afghanistan, he said.

About the shape of the Resolute Support mission, beginning in 2015, he said certain elements were already clear and that it would be a non-combat campaign with a much smaller number of troops and trainers.

Around 24 killed in JUI-F Kurram rally blast

ISLAMABAD/PESHAWAR/QUETTA : A bomb blast struck a JUI-F public meeting in central Kurram on Monday, killing as many as 24 persons and injuring over 50 others, including two candidates of the religious party.However, a spokesman of the Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl confirmed that over 50 people were injured.

Around 3000 people were attending the rally, jointly organised by the party’s candidates from NA-37 and NA-38 Haji Munir Khan Orakzai and Ainuddin Shakir at a local seminary in Sewak village of Para Chamkani area, when the bomb planted at the site went off.

Six of a family killed, wounded in Uruzgan blast

TIRINKOT : Six people of a family were killed and wounded in a roadside bombing in the Charchino district of central Uruzgan province, an official said on Wednesday.

A man and two of his children were killed and three women injured when the vehicle they were travelling in struck a roadside bomb in Sakhir area late Tuesday evening.

Police spokesman Farid Ayel told Pajhwok Afghan News the injured had been evacuated to a local hospital. However, he would not comment on their condition.

Earthquake rocks Pakistan, tremors felt in Kashmir and Afghanistan

Islamabad:  Earthquake jolts were felts across Afghanistan and many parts of northern and central Pakistan on Thursday, leaving at least three persons injured in Peshawar city.

According to reports, 5.9-magnitude earthquake occurred at around 11.30 am and was felt in Islamabad, Rawalpindi‚ Peshawar‚ Lahore, Muzaffarabad‚ Chitral and Malakand.

The quake was especially severe in Peshawar, where it was lasted almost 30 seconds, TV channels reported. At least three persons were injured in the northwestern city of Pakistan, officials told the media.

Australia to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by year-end

CANBERRA: Australia will withdraw most troops from Afghanistan’s south at the end of this year and shut down a major base for NATO-led forces, handing security to Afghan soldiers and police, Defence Minister Stephen Smith said on Tuesday.

Follow up:

Western and Afghan commanders, Smith said, had agreed that the major multinational coalition base at Tarin Kowt and its NATO airbase in Uruzgan province would close at the end of 2013.

Most foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014 under a planned security transition from foreign forces to Afghans. “It is a necessary and logical and natural consequence of transition being effective,” Smith said. “The effect of that closure will be that Australia will no longer have a permanent presence in Uruzgan province, and the majority of Australian defence force personnel will return.”

US cedes full control of Bagram prison to Afghan forces

KABUL :Afghanistan on Monday took full control of Bagram military prison from the United States, healing one running sore in their testy relationship as US-led forces wind down more than a decade of war.

President Hamid Karzai had made the fate of the detention centre north of Kabul part of his ill-tempered push to regain sovereignty over key matters from the Americans, ahead of next year's pullout of foreign combat troops.