Kabul  - Afghan soldiers and US-led coalition forces killed 44 Taliban militants, including a commander, in three firefights in southern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday.

Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces killed 33 militants in a clash in which airstrikes were called in Friday in the Nad Ali district of the southern province of Helmand, the US military said in a statement.

The combined forces were conducting a security patrol when they were engaged by militants firing small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, the statement said.

The joint forces returned fire "primarily with small-arms fire and limited close-air support," it said.

Kabul, Nov. 27 : One person was killed and six others were reportedly injured after a suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives outside or near the US Embassy in kabul on Thursday.

Reports said the bomber detonated explosives about 200m from the heavily guarded entrance to the US compound.

Kabul''s police chief, Mohammad Ayoub Salangi, was quoted by the BBC as saying that one person had been killed and six injured.

Kabul, Nov 27: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has reportedly criticised the US and other foreign countries for creating a “parallel government” in the countryside during an overview of Afghanistan’s problems before a UN Security Council delegation.

He said every effort to defeat the Taliban had failed because of the “parallel government”.

Kabul  - Ten suspected Taliban fighters were killed and four others were wounded in separate clashes with US-led coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan, the US military said on Wednesday.

The combined forces targeted a senior Taliban commander in Zormat district of the south-eastern province of Paktia on Tuesday, US military said in a statement.

As the forces approached the targeted area, a group of militants barricaded inside a compound fired on the troops with small arms fire, the statement said, adding the joint forces returned fire and killed five armed militants.

Kabul - Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday asked the United Nations Security Council to put an end to civilian casualties caused by UN-mandated international forces, the Afghan presidential palace reported.

Karzai, who has pleaded with NATO to avoid civilian deaths during their anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan, repeated his frustration in a meeting with UN Security Council representatives in his presidential palace in Kabul, Karzai's office said in a statement.

Kabul - Fourteen members of United Nations Security Council arrived on a three-day trip in Kabul on Monday to assess Afghanistan's progress in peace building, reconstruction, security and governance, the UN body said.

The delegation, which is headed by Giulio Terzi, ambassador of Italy in the Security Council, was scheduled to meet President Hamid Karzai and other government leaders.

"Included on their agenda are meetings relating to security, governance, human rights, economics and social development," the UN office in Kabul said in a statement.