Afghan Taliban say they have killed four US soldiers and injured four others in two separate bomb attacks in eastern Afghanistan.

A NATO helicopter has crashed in eastern Afghanistan during a battle with the Taliban, killing at least 31 US and seven Afghan soldiers, a statement from the Afghan president’s office said.

A suicide bomber has struck police headquarters in the capital of Helmand province, killing 10 Afghan policemen and a child in a city where Afghans have recently taken control of security.

The mayor of Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar city has been killed in a suicide bombing, officials have said.Mayor Ghulam Haidar Hamidi was killed when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a corridor near Hamidi’s office, Zalmay Ayoubi, the spokesperson for the Kandahar provincial governor, said on Wednesday.

A general strike has paralyzed Indian-administered Kashmir, in a second day of protests against the sexual assault of a woman by army personnel.

Working fervently to curb religious expression, Tajikistan’s secular government is working hard to stifle increasing images of people following the Islamic teachings that are apparent in the growing number of bearded men, hijab and religious audio recordings.

A senior aide to the Afghan president and a member of the Afghan parliament have been killed in Kabul, the country’s capital, in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

In a bid to lure Taliban into a peaceful reconciliation in Afghanistan, the UN Security Council removed 14 former Taliban members from its sanctions list.

Leaving a power vacuum in southern Afghanistan, Ahmad Wali Karzai, a controversial half brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, was shot dead on Tuesday, July 12, probably by one of his inner circle, Reuters reported.

A number of Libyan revolutionaries have finished military training courses in the city of Misratah to further continue their fight against loyalists of the country’s ruler Muammar Gaddafi.