Kabul - Nine civilians were killed and seven others wounded Wednesday when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan, a senior police official said.

The blast occurred in Sabari district of the south-eastern province of Khost when a bus en route to provincial capital of the same name was struck by a roadside bomb, police chief Abdul Qayoom Baqizoy said.

Sydney - Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami has urged Australia and other western nations to withdraw from Afghanistan, news reports said Wednesday.

"We see that some troops are coming all the way from the other side of the world to establish peace and security there," Khatami told students at the Australian National University in Canberra. "We tell them, leave them alone, they would not cry any more."

Khatami, speaking through an interpreter, is on an visit to Australia sponsored by Melbourne's La Trobe University.

Washington  - The United States will stay "on the offensive" against terrorist strongholds in Afghanistan and elsewhere, President Barack Obama said Tuesday, offering a glimpse into the administration's review of its policy in the region.

During a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Obama said the US needed a "more comprehensive strategy, a more focused strategy, a more disciplined strategy" to combat terrorism over the coming years.

Warsaw  - Poland will add 400 soldiers to

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Kabul, Mar. 24 : NATO officials are claiming that a senior Taliban leader responsible for numerous roadside bombings and suicide attacks has been killed along with nine other insurgent fighters.

Maulawi Hassan, described as a well-known Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan, was killed in an attack on Saturday on his compound near Kajaki, in Helmand Province, the New York Times quoted a NATO statement, as saying.