Islamabad - Pakistan on Monday closed a crucial overland route for supplies to US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, following a pre-dawn attack on a paramilitary camp in the troubled north-western Khyber tribal region, officials said.

Taliban militants attacked a Frontier Corps' camp in Landi Kotal town with mortar fire early Monday, killing one soldier and wounding around a dozen more, a security official said on condition of anonymity.

Berlin  - Germany was urged to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in a video believed to have been made by a member of the terrorist network Al-Qaeda.

A German-speaker wearing a black turban and facecloth that left only his eyes visible spoke in the 30-minute video, which was posted on the internet on Saturday.

The message, delivered by a man calling himself "Abu Talha, the German," was titled "Rescue Plan for Germany". It contained Arabic subtitles.

It made no direct threats against Germany, but said the country was "gullible and naive" to believe it could "emerge unscathed" from having the third-biggest contingent of foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Kabul  - A British soldier serving with NATO-led international troops was killed by "enemy fire" in southern Afghanistan, and the Taliban claimed they had downed a US military helicopter in eastern region, officials said Sunday.

The British soldier was killed in a fight with Taliban insurgents while he was on a joint foot patrol with Afghan forces close to the district centre of Sangin, in southern province of Helmand, British defence ministry said in a statement.

Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi, speaking from an undisclosed location by phone, claimed that their fighters killed four British soldiers during the gunbattle.

Berlin - Germany Foreign Minister Frank-Walter S

Kabul- No US soldiers were killed in a Saturday suicide bomb attack near to the Ge

Washington, Jan 17 : The security measures will be unprecedented on Tuesday as Barack Hussein Obama is sworn in as the 44th US President and America''s first black head of the state.

Millions are expected to make the pilgrimage to see him place his left hand on Abraham Lincoln''s burgundy velvet-bound Bible to take the inaugural oath.

The US Secret Service is overseeing a security force of more than 40,000 people, including 7,500 active duty soldiers, 10,000 National Guard troops and 25,000 law-enforcement officers, FOX News reported.