London/Moscow - NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Monday said Russian plan to keep troops in Georgia's breakaway regions was "unacceptable" and "hard to swallow."

He blamed oversights in an EU-brokered peace deal for not demanding the full withdrawal of troops to their bases in Russia before the war with Georgia last month.

The NATO secretary-general made the comments in an interview with the Financial Times shortly before he travelled to Tbilisi on Monday to show the alliances openness to including Georgia.

Riga - NATO's top official reassured Baltic nations of their security as members of the alliance Friday in the wake of Russia's war with Georgia.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - all former Soviet satellites - have been concerned for their security after watching Russian tanks roll into Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia.

"Nobody should doubt that this alliance ... given when necessary will do what is necessary," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told journalists in the Latvian capital Riga after talks with Latvian President Valdis Zatlers and the three Baltic foreign ministers.

Kabul - A suicide attack against a US private security firm in southern Afghanistan killed two civilians and wounded six others, while a NATO soldier was killed in a roadside bomb blast in the same region, officials said Thursday.

The bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a convoy of a US private security company in southern city of Kandahar, the provincial capital of the same name, on Thursday afternoon, killing two passers-by civilians, Zelmai Ayoubi, spokesman for the provincial governor said.

He said six other civilians were wounded in the attack, but there were no casualties among the personnel of the company.

Islamabad, Sept. 8 : A suspected missile strike, launched allegedly by US troops in Afghanistan, has claimed the lives of at least nine people in Pakistan''s volatile North Waziristan region.

According to reports from Dera Ismail Khan, missiles from a suspected U. S. drone aircraft struck a house and seminary linked to a key Taliban commander on Monday.

Officials and witnesses were quoted as saying that the attack took place in a village in North Waziristan.

Kabul, Sept. 4 : The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) rejected on Thursday recent media reports that the ISAF conducted operations in Pakistan.

Describing the reports as "completely false", an ISAF spokesman said in a statement: "The ISAF mission is to assist Afghanistan in providing a secure and stable environment to help Afghans rebuild their country and ISAF only operates in Afghanistan."

Islamabad, Sept. 4 : Pakistan''s Senate today adopted a unanimous resolution strongly condemning an attack by Afghanistan-based US-led NATO forces on a Pakistani border region killing 20 civilians.

The resolution mentioned that the raid undermined the basic norms of international law.