Hangu (NWFP), Apr. 14 : The Taliban has stopped the polio vaccination drive in Hangu region by threatening to kidnap health officials if they go ahead with the campaign.

“Armed Taliban came here and told my three-member team to stop vaccinating children. We stopped work in the area immediately after the Taliban warning, and this is the reason the Taliban have not done anything so far,” the Daily Times quoted Khan Meer, head of one of the polio teams working in Darsmand, as saying.

The campaign was launched on Monday in Darsmand union council of Lal tehsil as part of three-day polio drive in Hangu and Orakzai Agency.

Kabul - An Afghan district chief said Monday that a NATO airstrike killed six civilians and wounded more than a dozen others, but the alliance said that "multiple intelligence sources" suggested that four to eight insurgents were killed in the air raid. Zelmai Yousifzai, the district chief of Watapur district in the eastern province of Kunar claimed that six civilians, including two children, one woman and three men, were killed when their house was bombed by an aircraft under NATO command.

Kabul - The United Nations office in Afghanistan Monday condemned the assassination of a woman provincial legislator in southern Afghanistan by Taliban militants. Sitara Achikzai, who was aged in her 50s, was shot dead Sunday afternoon by Taliban fighters riding on motorbikes outside her home in Kandahar city, the capital of Kandahar province.

Kabul - A roadside bomb blast killed four Afghan civilians in the western province of Herat on Monday morning, while a similar attack killed two private security guards in the eastern region, officials said. A truck was blown up by the roadside bomb in the Meyan Band area of Adraskan district of Herat province. It was carrying labourers to a construction project, said Abdul Raouf Ahmadi, spokesman for the western region police.

Washington, Apr. 12 : US President Barack Obama has said that the revamped policy for Pakistan and Afghanistan is positively backed by all the US NATO allies.

Reffering to his last week's meeting with the NATO allies in Strasbourg, Obama said all the ally countries has shown their unity for the new policies.

"It was heartening that our NATO allies united in Strasbourg behind our strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and contributed important resources to support our effort there," Obama said.

Ottawa (Ohio), Apr. 12 : Forty percent Canadians support their country's military mission in Afghanistan, but if the Afghan Government proceeds with a law allowing marital rape, opposition to the mission would rise to a whopping 75 percent, according to a survey.

A proposed family law for Afghanistan''s Shia minority would make it illegal for women to refuse to have sex with their husbands.

The proposed law would also require women to get approval from a male relative before leaving the house, globeandmail. com reports.