Kabul - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is scheduled to visit Kabul for the first time on Friday for talks with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai amid increased Taliban-led attacks in their countries, Afghan presidential palace said.

"Discussions will be mainly concentrated on expansion of bilateral relations, cooperation in the fight against terrorism and promotion of trade between the two countries," the palace statement said.

The two leaders are scheduled to hold a press conference after the talks, the statement said.

Kabul - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Thursday that unnecessary detentions and house-searches of Afghan people would damage the legitimacy of his government and asked NATO-led international forces to respect the laws and culture of Afghanistan.

"Entering by force to our people's houses is against the government of Afghanistan," Karzai told a gathering of Afghan government officials and foreign diplomats in Kabul.

The president said his repeated demands to the nearly 70,000 NATO and US-led troops stationed in the country to put an end to house searches and detentions did not yield any result.

Washington, Dec 18: A new report by the US-based Congressional Research Service (CRS) has identified Pakistan as a base for terrorist groups and their supporters who are operating in Jammu and Kashmir, and Afghanistan.

Since 2003, the report notes, Pakistan Army has conducted "unprecedented and largely ineffectual counter-terrorism operations" in FATA where al Qaeda operatives and pro-Taliban insurgents are said to enjoy a `safe haven'.

Militant groups have only grown stronger and more aggressive in 2008, the report adds.

Kabul - An official in eastern Afghanistan said Wednesday three civilians were killed and two others were wounded when their house was attacked by US soldiers.

A man, his wife and 15-year-old son were killed in a coalition force raid in Khost, the capital of the province of the same name, a senior provincial official, who declined to be named, said.

He said two other civilians, a woman and a child, were wounded by "US soldiers firing." The official said the coalition forces did not inform the Afghan security forces of their operation in advance.

Kabul - Seven years down the line fighting terrorism in Afghanistan, the US government wants to shift its focus from the Iraq war to the Afghan conflict.

Analysts believe, however, that the US decision has come too late, as the Taliban have regained control of a large swathe of the country and defeating them appears virtually impossible.

Following their ouster in late 2001 in a US-led invasion, the Taliban movement was regarded as a tiny force of remnants of a defeated ultra-Islamic regime. The Taliban's strength was estimated at less than 2,000 fighters, and Afghan and NATO officials predicted they would be completely eliminated in a few years.

Kabul - A British soldier, two Afghan policemen and five militants were killed in separate clashes and blasts in the latest violence erupting in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.

A British soldier serving in the NATO-led international forces was killed by "enemy fire" in Gerishk district of the southern Helmand province on Monday, the fifth to die in less than week in the province, the British Defence Ministry said in a statement.

More than 8,000 British soldiers are part of some 50,00-strong NATO-led troops stationed in Afghanistan. Most of the British soldiers are deployed in volatile province of Helmand.