One person has been killed in an early morning rocket attack on the largest US military hub north of the Afghan capital of Kabul, NATO says.

The US military did not give details of the Monday attack on Bagram Air Field. It also did not say whether the victim was from the military personnel or a civilian at the base.

A local police chief in the Bagram district of Parwan province said one rocket was fired about 4 am on the base, but a Taliban spokesman told the Associated Press that two rockets targeted the base.

The US Bagram base is currently occupied by the 5th Aviation Battalion (Assault), and 6th Aviation Battalion (GSAB) of the US Army, with the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing of the US Air Force and other US Army, Navy , Marine Corps, and Coast Guard units, and their coalition partners.

Bagram is home to some 24,000 military personnel and civilian contractors located in an area of more than 5,000 acres (2,000-hectare).

The base is the frequent target of rocket and mortar attacks. Last year, insurgents launched more than a dozen attacks on Bagram, killing at least four people.

An American MQ-1 Predator drone has crashed on takeoff in southern Afghanistan, the US Air Forces Central Command confirms.

Early Monday reports said the aircraft was not gunned down by a hostile fire. It was also noted that the accident has left no casualties.

The US military said the drone was to conduct a surveillance mission in the area. Investigation is underway to find the cause of the failure.

The MQ-1 Predator Medium-Altitude Long-Endurance, commonly known as MALE, is the most famous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), currently in American service.

It is primarily utilized for surveillance but can also be outfitted with laser-guided missiles such as the AGM-114 Hellfire for use in targeted air strikes.

The US uses UAVs to target what it calls militant hideouts; however, the number of civilian lives lost in such attacks usually exceeds that of alleged militants.

The Afghan government has repeatedly called on Washington to put an end to the imprecise drone attacks, which have resulted in anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan over the civilian casualties.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered extra security forces for the southern city of Kandahar, following the death of dozens of people in Taliban attacks.

“The Afghan president has ordered new security forces for better security of Kandahar,” Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar told reporters on Monday.

The news comes a day after seven coordinated explosions, four bomber attacks and three improvised bomb blasts in Kandahar left 35 people dead and 100 injured in the largest city of the southern Taliban heartland.

The attacks are regarded as one of the biggest coordinated assaults by the Taliban in more than eight years.

The Taliban, who regard Kandahar as their spiritual center, said the attack was a preemptive response to plans by Afghan and NATO forces to launch military operations in the city.

Earlier, the governor of Kandahar province, Tooryalai Wesa, also called for more troops to be sent to the city as the residents were gripped by panic.

Last week, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told troops to brace for a tough fight as NATO laid plans to extend the fight against militants to Kandahar.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has reversed an earlier decision and agreed to let two foreigners join the country’s election watchdog.

Karzai’s move comes amid international pressure to avoid a repeat of problems in last year’s presidential vote marred by allegations of fraud.

The move, however, will be exclusive to September’s parliamentary polls.

Last month, the Afghan leader amended a law to give himself full control of the electoral commission and appoint all its five members.

The body previously had three UN appointees. It had stripped Karzai of nearly one-third of his votes last year after complaints of vote rigging.

At least two foreign soldiers have been killed and a number of others have been injured in Afghanistan’s troubled southern province of Zabul.

According to Afghan officials, the troops died after a bomb planted on a bridge went off as their patrol car was passing by.

Three more servicemen were reportedly wounded. Nationalities of the soldiers remain unknown.

Taliban militants have claimed responsibility for the attack, saying four foreign troops were killed in the blast.

Meanwhile, a local official says a similar explosion in the nearby province of Kandahar has left two Afghan soldiers dead and three others wounded.

A UN report says 2009 was the deadliest year for both Afghan civilians and foreign forces since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. However, officials believe that the number of foreign casualties in 2010 will surpass that of last year.

Thousands have been killed since the US led the invasion of Afghanistan. Most of the victims have been civilians residing in the conflict areas.

US President Barack Obama has convened his war cabinet with top military and intelligence officials to get an update on the US-led occupation of Afghanistan.

Obama was briefed on the latest situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan by his top aides during the Friday session in the so-called ‘Situation Room’ of the White House.

In the convention, US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of US military in war-ravaged Afghanistan, spoke, via video link, of “continued progress” on the ground against Taliban forces.

“We were largely through the clearing phase and more rapidly moving to a phase of hold, which puts a premium obviously on good governance,” AFP quoted White House spokesman Robert Gibbs Gibbs as saying on the continued occupation of the country.

He also quoted McChrystal as saying that the US military is keeping Obama’s commitment to send 30,000 additional US troops to the hotspots.

“We were on schedule on our force flow in getting additional forces approved by the president into Afghanistan by the end of summer,” he noted.

Militancy in Afghanistan has worsened in recent months despite US plans to fortify military and deploy extra troops in the war-ravaged country.

The heads of top US intelligence agencies were also present at the meeting of which no detailed report has been published.

Days after the Iranian president’s visit to Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki explains whether the trip has had an influence on the Afghan president’s trip made immediately afterwards to Pakistan.

Speaking to Press TV on Friday, the Iranian foreign minister said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Kabul had been scheduled only days after the presidential elections in Afghanistan.

Mottaki said the visit was aimed at “congratulating Mr.[Hamid] Karzai,” “reviewing relations between Tehran and Kabul, reviewing the latest situation in Afghanistan,” and “holding talks on security measures.”

The Iranian minister went on to explain about the trip made by President Karzai to Pakistan immediately after the departure of the Iranian delegation, saying “it is the nature of relations between countries.”

Mottaki said while the visit was “not directly linked” to President Ahmadinejad’s trip, it was related to a decision made during talks with the Iranian delegation about holding a trilateral summit in Islamabad.

“I think based on the negotiation between Ahmadinejad and Karzai, he will also be in contact with President Zardari,” the Iranian foreign minister said.

A bomb blast has claimed another soldier serving under the United States command in Afghanistan, NATO says.

The soldier, whose nationality was withheld, died in an explosion caused by an improvised explosive device in south Afghanistan on Friday, said the US-led military alliance NATO, AFP reported.

The mortality took to 122 the number of the foreign troops killed in Afghanistan since the beginning of the year.

The war, which, according to January opinion surveys, is opposed by more than half of the American people, is nearing its ninth year, having killed many thousands of Afghan civilians and yet short of bringing any sign of stability to the war-torn country.

A NATO soldier has been killed in a bomb blast in southern Afghanistan, taking this year’s total death toll to 121, the alliance says.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said on Thursday that a makeshift bomb explosion killed the soldier, but withheld the nationality of the victim.

Another report, released today by the British Ministry of Defense, says a British soldier was killed on Sunday while on foot patrol in the Sangin area of northern Helmand province.

It says the death had no link to the ongoing operations around the southern town of Marjah, where thousands of US, NATO and Afghan troops are cracking down on the Taliban.

The fatality brings the number of British military personnel killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 272.

Earlier in the day, the Taliban claimed they had killed five American soldiers in southern Afghanistan.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says his government is ready to hold talks with Taliban leaders, including Mullah Mohammad Omar.

“We have contacts [with the Taliban] as high as you wish to go,” Karzai told reporters in Islamabad on Thursday.

Karzai is currently on a tour of neighboring Pakistan in an effort to gain Islamabad’s support for his reconciliation plan.

Reports say Britain wants Pakistan to moderate talks between senior Taliban members and the Afghan government.

Karzai says this would be allowed under the Afghan constitution.

He has criticized the Western countries for what he calls uncoordinated approach to his government’s plan to engage with Taliban.

A Taliban militant group claims its forces have killed five American soldiers in eastern Afghanistan amid growing casualty figures among foreign troops.

A Taliban spokesman said on Thursday the troops died after a bomb they planted on the side of a road in Nangarhar province blew up a US tank.

The US army, however, has dismissed the report.

Meanwhile, the Taliban have yet to confirm reports that one of its local commanders was killed in a US air strike in the eastern Kunar province on Wednesday night.

Thousands have been killed since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Most of the victims have been civilians residing in the conflict areas.

The Taliban has claimed that its militants have killed 40 Afghan and foreign troops in the southeastern province of Paktika.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mojahed said on Wednesday the militants planted a bomb on a car that was exploded inside a US military base in Bermel city.

He added that there were 3,000 kilograms of explosives inside the car.

NATO confirmed the attack, but said several soldiers have been wounded in the bombing in southeastern Afghanistan.

A similar bomb blast on Tuesday left two NATO soldiers dead in the nearby province of Khost.

The US House of Representatives has rejected an effort by anti-war lawmakers to force a withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

On Wednesday, Sixty-five lawmakers, most of them Democrats, voted for the pullout resolution, while 356 voted against.

The resolution written by liberal Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich called for President Barack Obama to pull out US forces from Afghanistan by the end 2010.

Supporters of the Kucinich resolution said it was time for US legislators to consider the continuation of the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan in which around 1,000 US soldiers have been killed and hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent without having established security in the war-ravaged country.

“Unless this Congress acts to claim its constitutional responsibility, we will stay in Afghanistan for a very, very long time at great cost to our troops and to our national priorities,” Kucinich said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has arrived in Pakistan to discuss the extradition of recently captured militant leaders.

Karzai arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday evening and will stay through Thursday. It is the Afghan leader’s first trip to Pakistan since he was re-elected in a disputed presidential election in August.

The Afghan president is to meet with top Pakistani officials including President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Karzai’s visit comes after Pakistani’s Inter-Services Intelligence reportedly arrested several Taliban leaders, including second-in-command Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

However, a Pakistani court has restrained the government from extraditing militant leaders to any other country, raising the prospects of a new row between Kabul and Islamabad.

Iran’s president says the US must explain what its troops are doing in Afghanistan, as catching terrorists only requires intelligence work not military deployments.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the comment in a joint press conference with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Wednesday morning.

The Iranian president was responding to a question about the recent arrest of Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi.

“Rigi is supported by the same people [and] governments, who have ill intentions for the government of Afghanistan and the Iranian nation. Rigi was a terrorist, who along with his associates killed more than 140 people,” said Ahmadinejad.

“Was Iran able to stop him? Yes, we arrested Rigi. Of course that was achieved with the cooperation of the Afghan and Pakistani intelligence services… but [in that process] Iran killed no innocent people,” he added.

“Is this not an example of the right way to fight terrorism? Why those who claim to be eager to fight terrorism are unsuccessful? Well the answer is that they themselves started terrorism and they want to fight it now. But they can’t.”

Ahmadinejad said that fighting terrorism is not possible with military surge, adding that terrorism can only be fought with intelligence cooperation.

Ahmadinejad was also asked about the significance of the simultaneous visit of US Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Afghanistan, to which he responded by asking the American official about the objectives of his trip.

“My question to Mr. Gates is what is he doing here? Your country is 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles) away from the Middle East…Are you here to capture terrorists? Well if so it is clear what you must do, but if you are here to do something else, admit to it.”

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has called on the Afghan government to work harder in order to achieve a peace agreement with the Taliban.

Miliband’s comments, in a speech to be delivered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) later on Wednesday, reflect increasing recognition in the West that the Taliban militants who break ties to al Qaeda could play a role in the country’s future.

“Now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigor and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort,” Miliband said in excerpts published prior to his speech.

In a separate appearance in Boston on Tuesday night, Miliband said there was no longer a military solution for Afghanistan.

“The truth about an insurgency and a counterinsurgency is that it’s never ended militarily, it’s only ended politically,” he said at a public forum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Nearly nine years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, it is not enough to explain to people why the war started, Miliband is to say in Wednesday’s speech.

“We need to set out how it will be ended,” he is expected say. “Afghanistan will never achieve a sustainable peace unless many more Afghans are inside the political system, and the neighbors are onside with the political settlement.”

The Labour government in the UK, which faces a struggle to win an election due in the next few months, needs to show it has an exit strategy for its 9,500 troops in Afghanistan.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has left Tehran for Kabul leading a high-ranking delegation on his first official visit to Afghanistan since the re-election of Hamid Karzai as president.

The Iranian president was received in the Afghan capital by Vice President Muhammad Qasim Fahim. He is reportedly on his way to be officially welcomed by President Karzai in the presidential palace.

“Iran has innovative plans for resolving ongoing problems in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of the occupying forces from the country,” Ahmadinejad told reporters on Wednesday ahead of his departure.

He touched upon strong bonds between the two neighboring states and said Iran has always supported the Afghan people while they were facing woes.

Ahmadinejad said Iranian and Afghan authorities have been holding regular consultations, adding, “Afghan President Karzai travelled to Iran many times and I have paid a visit to Afghanistan.”

The Iranian president said he would hold talks with senior Afghan officials, expressing optimism that the two countries would take positive steps to deal with existing issues.

Iran firmly believes that the persisting instability and insecurity in Afghanistan has its roots in the presence of foreign troops and has repeatedly called for the complete withdrawal of US-led forces from the country.

Iran, which has close ethnic and religious ties with Afghanistan, is a long-time victim of opium production in the neighbor state.

Although Iran has won the praise of the UN for its strenuous efforts in fighting drug trafficking, its long border with Afghanistan has prompted smugglers to view Iran as the best route for transporting drug to Europe and the West.

Since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, drug production in the country has surged making it the source of 90 percent of the world’s heroin supply.

At least two NATO soldiers have been killed in a bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan, eyewitnesses say.

The incident occurred in Khost Province’s Ali Shir District near the border with Pakistan where a NATO army base is located.

However, NATO spokeswoman Master Sergeant Sabrina Foster asserted that she could not confirm reports that the attack took place at the base.

In another attack in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, two policemen and a civilian were killed in a roadside bomb attack.

“The attack occurred in the southeastern corner of Kandahar province near the Pakistan border,” said General Abdul Raziq, the border police commander for the region.

Iran has spent more than $280 million in the reconstruction projects of Afghanistan so far, says Iran’s envoy to its eastern neighbor.

“A total of $220 million has been spent in the road construction projects while more than $60 million was provided in education, telecommunications, electricity, borders security, health sector, higher education and sports,” Iran’s Ambassador in Kabul, Fada Hussein Maleki, told Press TV in an exclusive interview.

Maleki pointed out that Iran had pioneered in helping the Afghan people and offered its full support for the reconstruction of Afghanistan in international conferences such as those in Tokyo and London.

“The reconstruction of Afghanistan after several lengthy wars was an important issue and all countries had to contribute to it,” he said.

“Iranian and Afghan delegations will be exchanging visits to each other’s countries in the near future.”

Iran and Afghanistan have about 1,000 kilometers in common border. The two countries have a trade volume of more than $1.3 billion.

Press TV, Iran’s English-language news network, available through broadcasts and the Internet, has been reported to be a very popular news source among the people and even journalists of Afghanistan.

According to local reports, when Press TV became available on cable in Kabul and various provinces, Afghan officials and ordinary citizens welcomed the international network as an alternative, more credible news source.

The country’s media regularly consults Press TV’s website to access daily news that are more in tune with the public preference, say media officials.

Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is reported to have told a private gathering he tunes in to Press TV’s news reports and that he finds them more reliable and enlightening than other English language sources.

The US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 has turned the country into a hotspot with breaking news on a daily basis.

Western countries have been trying to censor news relating to civilian casualties in order to justify Washington’s military measures in the war-torn country.

However, Press TV is doing its best to broadcast the most accurate count on casualties in the foreign-occupied nation through live reports.

Press TV has set a precedent as the first Iranian international news network, broadcasting in English on a round-the-clock basis.

It is also extensively networked with bureaus located in the world’s most strategic locations.