Kabul, Oct 13 : Rebutting press reports that the US-led war-on-terror in Afghanistan had hit a roadblock, the top American commander in the country Gen. David D. McKiernan has said that they were not losing the war, though the overall progress was not that “fast and even” as it should have been.

Lahore, Oct 13 : Even as the US and the UK have been encouraging the Afghan Government to hold talks with the moderate Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had recently offered cabinet berths to the Taliban leaders in his government if they agreed to a peace deal which could bring fighting to an end.

Karzai reportedly made the offer through his brother Qayoun at a secret meeting in Saudi Arabia of which Britain was aware.

Khost, Afghanistan - The young Texan woman talking to the Afghan tribesman wears a US military uniform and carries an assault rifle, but she's not a soldier.

Her training is in anthropology, which is proving an effective tool for negotiating the complexities of Afghanistan's honeycomb tribal structure and, according to a senior US commander, significantly reducing the need for "kinetic," or combat, operations.

Kabul - More than 100 Taliban insurgents were killed in two separate operations using NATO air power in the southern province of Helmand, a government spokesman said Sunday.

At least 62 Taliban militants including foreign fighters were killed when rebels attacked police posts close to the provincial capital Lashkargah early Sunday, Daoud Ahmadi, spokesman for the governor, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

London, Oct 12 : British officials covered up evidence that a Taliban commander killed by special forces in Helmand last year was in fact a Pakistani military officer, according to highly placed Afghan officials.

The commander, targeted in a compound in the Sangin valley, was one of six killed in the past year by Special Air service regiment and Special Boat Service regiment of the British Army. When the British soldiers entered the compound they discovered a Pakistani military ID on the body, The Times reported.

It was the first physical evidence of covert Pakistani military operations against British forces in Afghanistan even though Islamabad insists it is a close ally in the war against terror.

Miranshah, Oct 12: A missile strike by a suspected US spy drone hit a compound in a Pakistan’s tribal area bordering Afghanistan late Saturday killing five people.

“Two missiles struck a compound just outside Miranshah which killed five people and injured 2 who were shifted to nearby hospital,” The News quoted a security official, as saying on the condition of anonymity. 

Earlier on October 9, at least seven people, including three foreigners, were killed in a missile attack by a suspected US drone, 20 kilometres east of Miranshah, local witnesses had said.

The attack on Ghundai village in North Waziristan Agency targeted the house of Muhammad Sultan, son of Zaley Gul.