Washington  - The US military is preparing for a buildup of as many as 20,000 troops next year in Afghanistan to step up the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgency, a top US commander said Friday.

The military has started building housing, latrines and other infrastructure needed to support the increase, Major General Michael Tucker, the deputy commander of US forces in Afghanistan, told reporters at the Pentagon via teleconference.

Ankara - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghanistan counterpart Harmid Karzai were in Istanbul Friday for a summit to discuss ways to improve regional security.

The two leaders are expected to concentrate on tensions over Pakistan's north-western tribal regions, which have become a base and recruiting ground for hardline Taliban fighters bent on overthrowing the Afghanistan government.

Discussions are also expected on preventing drug smuggling and organized crime.

Friday's meeting was the second summit between the leaders of the neighbouring countries, with Karzai holding talks in April last year with then Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf.

London, Dec 4 : German soldiers in Afghanistan have been accused of being “too fat and too drunk” to fight Taliban fanatics.

According to a report, last year 3,500 German troops in Afghanistan downed 1.7million pints of beer and 90,000 bottles of wine.

MPs have said that these soldiers live on ‘beer and sausages’.

The report also revealed that more than 40pct of the troops are overweight.

German troops were given the task of training Afghan police. But General Hans-Christoph Ammon, the commander of the special commando unit, the KSK, called the efforts as “a miserable failure.”

Kabul - The governor of the southern Afghan province of Kandahar said Thursday that he was being sacked by the central government.

General Rahmatullah Raoufi, who had served as army commander in the southern region before he was appointed as governor, had replaced powerful and controversial former governor Assadullah Khalid in August.

Khalid had disagreements with NATO-led Canadian commanders in the province and Canadian government officials earlier this year had asked President Hamid Karzai to remove him.

Ankara - Afghan warlord and former army chief Rashid Dostum has flown to Turkey to live in exile, Vatan newspaper reported on Thursday.

Vatan reported that Dostum, a leader of Afghanistan's Uzbek community whose forces fought both for and against the Taliban, flew to Turkey on a private plane provided by the Turkish government on Tuesday.

Dostum was a key figure in the government of President Hamid Karzai but was removed from his post as Chief of Staff of the Afghan military in February, after allegations that fighters loyal to Dostum had kidnapped a former ally turned rival.

Paris - A French aid worker abducted in the streets of Kabul one month ago has been freed, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Wednesday.

Dany Egreteau, 32, who worked for the NGO Solidarity Laique, was kidnapped by armed men on November 3 while walking in the centre of the Afghan capital.

An Afghan secret service agent who tried to prevent the kidnapping was shot to death by the abductors.

In a statement, Kouchner thanked French and Afghan authorities for their efforts in obtaining Egreteau's release, and slammed the kidnappers for targeting aid workers.