Afghanistan

Afghan President Hamid Karzai "strongly condemned" a NATO airstrike that killed at least eight children in eastern Afghanistan, a palace statement said Thursday.

Russia would allow NATO to use its territory to withdraw international troops from Afghanistan, the French Ambassador to Moscow said Thursday.

A meeting between representatives of Pakistan Army, Afghan National Army and ISAF was held on Wednesday, the first after the November NATO strike on Pakistani posts which had killed 24 soldiers.

A local Taliban leader was captured during a joint operation on Tuesday morning in southern Afghan province of Helmand, said a press release issued here by NATO-led forces.

A helicopter of the NATO-led ISAF force crashed Monday in eastern Afghanistan, without causing casualties, the organization said.

A spokesman of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said on Monday that the protection of Afghan civilians remains ISAF's prime responsibility.

Afghani rulers, opposition and human rights activists say Afghanis casting-off from the negotiations between the U.S. and Taliban militant group is unacceptable.

A car bomb killed at least six policemen and injured more than a dozen others Sunday in southern Afghanistan, an official said, dpa reported.

The United States was committed to Afghanistan until 2014, when NATO-led troops would end their combat mission and hand over security to Afghan forces, US ambassador Ryan Crocker said Saturday.

A total of 3,021 Afghan civilians had been killed in 2011, said United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in its annual report released here on Saturday.