Kabul - Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced on Monday that he intended to run for re-election in the country's presidential polls slated in August 20. Karzai, who has led Afghanistan for more than seven years since the ouster of the Islamist extremist Taliban regime in late 2001, had hinted his intention for re-election in the past, but had said that he would do so if the Afghan people asked him.

Kabul - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday in Kabul that the world could not tolerate the existence of terrorist bases in border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying a new strategy would be unveiled this week.

Brown arrived on a surprise visit in Afghanistan on Monday morning and met with President Hamid Karzai to discuss his plans to fight the "crucible of terrorism" in the border region, to be formally announced in the House of Commons this week.

Kabul - Five Afghan policemen and two civilians were killed in a roadside bomb blast in a restive southern province, where five Taliban militants were also killed, officials said Monday. The five insurgents were killed by Afghan and coalition forces in Zharai district of the southern province of Kandahar Monday morning, the US military said in a statement.

Islamabad, Apr. 27 : The Taliban has threatened to take revenge from the villagers of the Buner region who had formed `Lashkar' to prevent them advancing further in the region.

Maulana Misbahuddin Malikpuri, a Taliban operative, said the outfit would seek revenge from the residents of Shalbandi and Sultanwus villages as they had dared to form `Lashkar' against them.

Meanwhile, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Muslim Khan has said the Taliban would not lay their arms until all US citizens are thrown out of Pakistan, and Darul Qaza was set up.

Kabul - Taliban militants have sustained heavy casualties in the latest operations by Afghan and NATO-led forces in the central province of Wardak, an Afghan provincial spokesman said Saturday. The operation started on Friday afternoon in Wardak's Chak district, which lies on the south-western border of Kabul city, Shahidullah Shahid, a spokesman for the provincial governor, told the German News Agency dpa.

Kandahar, Afghanistan - Three suicide bombers attacked a provincial governor's office in southern Afghanistan Saturday, killing five policemen and wounding at least three others, officials said. The bombers tried to enter the office of Kandahar governor Saturday afternoon but were stopped by policemen guarding the compound, provincial council head Ahmad Wali Karzai said.

"Five policemen were killed in explosion," Karzai, the younger brother of President Hamdi Karzai, said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary in Kabul confirmed the attack and said that three other policemen were wounded.