AFP - An Afghan provincial governor said Saturday 16 civilians including women, children and doctors were killed in US-led coalition air strikes but the force insisted the dead were militants.

AFP - Afghan security forces seized 1.4 tonnes of opium in western Afghanistan near the border with Iran, authorities said Saturday.

AFP - An Afghan provincial governor said Saturday 16 civilians including women, children and doctors were killed in US-led coalition air strikes but the force insisted the dead were militants.

Reuters - Two gunmen shot dead an Afghan parliamentarian near his home in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday.

AP - Gunmen in a dangerous part of southern Afghanistan assassinated an Afghan lawmaker, while a roadside bomb militants were planting detonated prematurely, killing 10 Taliban, officials said Saturday.

AFP - Unidentified gunmen have shot dead a member of Afghanistan's parliament in the troubled southern province of Kandahar, a district governor told AFP Saturday.

AP - As of Friday, July 4, 2008, at least 468 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures June 28 at 10 a.m. EDT.

AFP - South Korean police said Friday that nine people have been arrested for trying to smuggle tons of chemicals for heroin production to Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents.

AP - The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time.

AFP - Barack Obama will press European NATO partners for more troops for Afghanistan and to ease operational restrictions on those already there if he is elected president, a foreign policy aide said Thursday.

Reuters - Some 2,200 U.S. Marines battling insurgents in southern Afghanistan have had their tour of duty extended by 30 days, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

AFP - The United States has extended the stay of 2,200 marines in Afghanistan for one month until November, making their tours eight months long instead of seven, a marines spokeswoman said Thursday.

AFP - Children in Afghanistan suffer more than in any other country in the world from violence, war and poverty, and sometimes become suicide bombers, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Thursday.

Reuters - U.S. President George W. Bush will meet new Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on July 28 in Washington, the White House said on Thursday, amid tensions about battling Taliban and al Qaeda militants in Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan.

AFP - Afghan and NATO-led forces killed 32 Taliban militants in two separate clashes in Afghanistan, officials said on Thursday.

Reuters - Afghanistan's insurgency can be overcome, not only by military means but by building up the state and getting the economy going, the United Nations envoy to Afghanistan said on Thursday.

AFP - US President George W. Bush on Wednesday acknowledged "a tough month" for NATO and US-led forces in Afghanistan but insisted the war-fighting strategy there is working, despite increasing violence.

AP - Grappling with a record death toll in an overshadowed war, President Bush promised Wednesday to send more U.S. troops into Afghanistan by year's end. He conceded that June was a "tough month" in the nearly seven-year-old war.