Lahore, Nov 11: A few Afghan-based money exchange firms are facilitating illegal export of US dollars from Pakistan to Afghanistan, thus causing a massive devaluation of the Pakistani rupee against the US dollar, said State Bank of Pakistan Governor Shamshad Akhtar in a communiqué to the country’s Interior Adviser Rehman Malik.

She requested to investigate the matter and ensure that more vigilance was exercised on currency smuggling.

According to rough estimates, some 4-5 million dollars per day are being smuggled to Afghanistan, while the rising demand of the dollar has also increased its value against other currencies.

Kabul - An Afghan provincial governor said Monday that US- led coalition military forces killed 14 security guards working with a road construction company in eastern Afghanistan, while the US military claimed those killed were militants.

The incident happened close to Khost, the provincial capital of like-named south-eastern province, on late Sunday when coalition forces opened fire on three vehicles, Khost governor, Arsala Jamal said.

Paris - Afghan-born Atiq Rahimi was on Monday named winner of France's most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, for his novel Synge Sabour.

The title of the novel - Rahimi's fourth, but the first to be written in French - is taken from the Persian name of a magic black stone that represents patience and which absorbs all suffering and pain.

The book is in the form of a monologue of an Afghan woman addressing her soldier-husband who lies in a coma in their house.

The monologue ultimately becomes an outcry for all Afghan women - indeed, all women - about wishing to become free of domestic, social and religious oppression and a tirade against the man whom she is nursing.

Los Angeles, Nov 10 : Besides the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US President-elect Barack Obama will have to face another war - against stateless networks of Islamic extremists, particularly in the wake of trained terrorists retrning to Britain and other western countries, said an unidentified Italian anti-terrorism official.

Kabul/Madrid - Two NATO-led Spanish soldiers were killed and four were wounded when a suicide bomber attacked their convoy in Afghanistan's western Herat province, Afghan and Spanish officials said Sunday.

The bomber rammed his explosives-laden van into a convoy of Afghan and NATO soldiers in the Shindand district on Sunday morning, Abdul Raouf Ahmadi, spokesman for police forces in western Afghanistan, said.

Kabul/Madrid - Two NATO-led Spanish soldiers were killed and four were wounded when a suicide bomber attacked their convoy in Afghanistan's western Herat province, Afghan and Spanish officials said Sunday.

The bomber rammed his explosives-laden van into a convoy of Afghan and NATO soldiers in the Shindand district on Sunday morning, Abdul Raouf Ahmadi, spokesman for police forces in western Afghanistan, said.

"According to our information two NATO soldiers were killed and four others were wounded in suicide attack that happened in Azizabad area," Ahmadi said, adding that an Afghan passerby was also wounded.