AFGHANISTAN

Five young girls slipped briefly into comas and nearly 100 were taken to hospital after a gas attack on their school on Tuesday, the third in a series of such incidents north of Kabul, Afghan officials said.

Afghanistan said on Tuesday it hoped the newly named commander of U.S. and NATO troops would do more to avert civilian deaths, which had soured relations under outgoing commander General David McKiernan.

The International Monetary Fund slashed its 2009 economic growth forecast for the Gulf region by more than half to 1.3 percent as the three largest oil-exporting economies, including Saudi Arabia, shrink in a global slowdown.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday replaced the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan and picked a former special forces commander to oversee President Barack Obama's military strategy against a growing Taliban insurgency.

The U.S. military denied on Sunday it had used the incendiary chemical white phosphorus in a battle that killed civilians in west Afghanistan last week, after a rights group said it was investigating suspicious burns.

U.S. President Barack Obama will deliver a speech to the Muslim world in Egypt next month, seeking to repair ties that were severely damaged under his predecessor George W. Bush.

Pakistani forces have killed 143 militants over the past 24 hours in fighting in the Islamist bastion of Swat northwest of the capital, the military said on Friday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to appoint a three-star general to boost the U.S. military leadership in Afghanistan, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

A suicide bomber on a motorbike struck a convoy of foreign troops in southern Afghanistan Thursday, killing 12 civilians and wounding 30 people, a provincial governor's spokesman said.

Afghanistan's only known pig has been locked in a room, away from visitors to Kabul zoo where it normally grazes beside deer and goats, because people are worried it could infect them with the virus popularly known as swine flu.

President Barack Obama warned on Wednesday of more violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but said his government was still committed to defeating al Qaeda, while trying to avoid civilian deaths on those countries.

Pakistani security forces attacked Taliban fighters on Wednesday killing at least 64 of them, the military said, after the United States called on the government to show its commitment to fighting militancy.

U.S. President Barack Obama will urge the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan to put aside a history of mistrust and join Washington in an alliance against Islamic extremists at a White House meeting on Wednesday, senior administration officials said.

President Barack Obama presents his strategy for defeating al Qaeda to the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday amid growing U.S. concern that it is losing the war and neither is a reliable ally.

Opponents of Afghan President Hamid Karzai are scrambling to unite behind a single leader in a last-minute bid to field a unified team for the August 20 election, the brother of one of the main hopefuls said on Tuesday.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives will seek passage in coming weeks of $94.2 billion in emergency money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other programs, including $2 billion more to prepare for an influenza pandemic.

Pakistani forces battled Taliban fighters on Monday as the militants denounced the army and government as U.S. stooges and said a peace pact would end unless the government halted its offensive.

At least 27 people, most of them civilians and one a provincial mayor, were killed in a spate of attacks in Afghanistan on Monday, officials said.

President Barack Obama presents his strategy for defeating al Qaeda to the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday amid growing U.S. concern it is losing the war and neither is a reliable ally.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday she expected intense sessions when the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan come to Washington for three-nation talks next week.

Taliban militants kidnapped 10 Pakistani paramilitaries in an attack on their headquarters on Friday as Islamic militants fought back against an army offensive in the troubled northwest.