Two killed in Kabul clamp-down

KABUL (Reuter) - At least two men were killed and two others wounded in Kabul yesterday when hundreds of Afghan government troops began clearing the city of armed groups which have terrorised the capital for the past two months. Sporadic gunfire could be heard throughout the day as tanks and armoured troop carriers rumbled through the streets.

Kabul fell to Afghan rebel forces in April after 14 years of civil war. Since then, a patchwork of rival guerrilla groups and former government militia forces, divided by politics, religion and ethnicity, has ruled the city.