Islamabad  - US Special Representative Richard Holbrooke arrived in Pakistan on Monday for talks on ways to tackle Taliban militancy in Afghanistan.

Holbrooke, who was recently named by US President Barack Obama as his envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, flew into Islamabad from Munich where he told a security conference that "new ideas and better coordination" were needed to fight the Taliban.

The diplomat was scheduled to met Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani during his four-day visit.

Kabul - Suicide attacks and roadside blasts killed four Afghan forces and two civilians in weekend attacks in Afghanistan, while elsewhere a government official was beheaded by militants and two rebels were killed in clashes, officials said Monday.

In the latest incident, a roadside bomb killed three Afghan police forces and wounded two others in the Khogyani district of eastern Nangarhar province, the interior ministry said in a statement.

A police vehicle and five AK-47 rifles were also destroyed in the blast, it said.

New Delhi, Feb. 9 : The Indian Government on Monday confirmed the death of a citizen who was abducted by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

In a statement released here, a government spokesman said: "It is with regret that we convey that the authorities in Afghanistan have informed us that the abducted Indian national Shri Simon Paramananthan has died while still in custody of his abductors. We are ascertaining further details. His family in India has been informed."

Kabul - Seven years after the fall of the Taliban, the number of Afghans hopeful of a peaceful future for their troubled country is dwindling fast, according to a survey published Monday.

Just 40 per cent of those asked thought their country was heading in the right direction, in a nationwide poll funded by the BBC, US broadcaster ABC and Germany's WDR/ARD.

Three years ago - the last time a similar poll was carried out - nearly twice as many Afghans, 77 per cent, were hopeful about the future.

Munich  - There were long faces in Munich on Sunday as world leaders debated the fate of the seven-year-old international mission in Afghanistan.

"If we had thought in 2001 that in seven and a half years we'd still be worried, we would have thought it too pessimistic," Poland's foreign minister and former defence minister Radek Sikorksi told the prestigious Munich Security Conference.

But there was worry aplenty in the hall as top soldiers and politicians from the West, Afghanistan and Pakistan grappled with the question of how to tackle a resurgent Taliban, crack down on the drugs trade and strengthen Afghanistan's fragile government.

Munich  - NATO and Afghan leaders were set to debate the future of the international mission in Afghanistan on Sunday amid tensions between Washington, Kabul and European capitals.

US National Security Advisor James Jones, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and German Defence Minister Franz-Josef Jung were to address the prestigious Munich Security Conference at a time when Western leaders are becoming increasingly critical of Karzai's regime and NATO members are struggling to raise troops to combat the Taliban.