Nato forces have killed al-Qa'ida's second-highest ranking leader in Afghanistan in an air strike.

Television histories don't usually spend a lot of time establishing their presenter's credentials. Unless they've really gone populist and handed the job over to Richard Hammond, we're supposed to take it for granted that the person on screen actually knows what he or she is talking about.

The French president François Hollande continued his whirlwind introduction to office yesterday with a snap visit to Afghanistan to defend his early withdrawal of French troops.

French President Francois Hollande made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan today to visit some of the French troops he wants to pull out later this year, defending his plan for their early exit after meeting his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai.

Half of the major terrorist plots threatening Britain emerge from Afghanistan and Pakistan nearly 11 years after UK troops joined a US-led coalition to oust the Taliban, David Cameron said today.

The shooting of two UK soldiers by Afghan security personnel has led to tension and uncertainty. By Kim Sengupta in Lashkar Gah

A Russian-made Soyuz craft carrying three astronauts has docked with the International Space Station, putting the crew in place for the imminent arrival of the first ever privately owned cargo ship to the orbiting lab.

Latest fatal attack brings the number of UK military killed in the Afghan conflict to 414

An attacker wearing an Afghan army uniform opened fire on Nato troops today in the country's east, killing one service member, the coalition said.

A Bosnian-born US citizen has been found guilty of planning a co-ordinated suicide bomb attack on New York City subways in 2009 at the behest of senior al-Qa'ida operatives.

Nato has been accused of misleading the public over success in Afghanistan by saying operations involving only its troops are led by local forces.

Afghanistan and the US agreed on a much-delayed strategic partnership deal yesterday that is meant to govern the US role in Afghanistan during and after the reduction of international forces in the country.

Afghan security forces have arrested five militants with 10 tons of explosives that they had brought from Pakistan to use to carry out a massive attack in Kabul, as well as another three planning an assassination attempt against the vice president.

With few homes in Afghanistan featuring their own private bathrooms, communal bathing is popular enough to support more than 250 public facilities in the capital, Kabul, alone.