A former Guantanamo Bay detainee posed no threat during an awards ceremony confrontation, his target says.

"I was tortured for 5-and-a-half years!" Ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks heckled Australia's Attorney-General at an awards ceremony last night.

New Zealand could further extend its mission training security forces in Afghanistan beyond next year after the United States announced it was delaying the planned withdrawal of 1000 troops from Afghanistan.

Prince Harry returned to Afghanistan today on behalf of the Queen as he led emotional tributes to his friends who died in the name of war.

Three NZ Defence Force personnel have already left for the Middle East to scope out a role for New Zealand forces to help train Iraqi forces fight ISIS.

The Prime Minister's landmark speech on national security has two messages for New Zealanders, but they are somewhat discordant.

John Key says any NZ commitment to the campaign against Isis in the Middle East would be for a long time, pointing to the 10-year deployment of troops to Bamiyan.

There were reasons for optimism on that February day, eight years ago, that Britain's Helmand force would not suffer the same fate as the French in Vietnam

The spring rainy season had already brought death and destruction to northern Afghanistan.

The star witness in the trial of a radical Islamic cleric has described how he received a hug from Osama bin Laden after he was given instructions for a "shoe bomb" plot.

With just days left in Afghanistan's presidential campaign, Abdullah Abdullah arrives in Kandahar for one of his last rallies before the election.

A British sniper in Afghanistan killed six insurgents with a single bullet after hitting the trigger switch of a suicide bomber whose device then exploded.

Aid worker Nicola Rounce - a project manager who has lived in some of the world's most dangerous places - has escaped a murderous attack in Afghanistan.

A New Zealand woman is safe and unharmed after an attack by gunmen on a Kabul hotel, despite initial reports she had been killed.

A Kiwi soldier wounded by friendly fire in Afghanistan has paid tribute to a US Air Force search and rescue crew after they received one of the US military's highest honours.

An Afghan man is understood to have become the first atheist ever to secure asylum in Britain on religious grounds.

A young girl found wearing a suicide vest in Afghanistan has spoken about how her family "treated her like a slave" and tried to make her blow up a police checkpoint.

A 10-year-old Afghan girl has been apprehended while trying to carry out a suicide bombing attack against local police.

A suicide car bomber tore through the Afghan capital, just hours after President Hamid Karzai announced US and Afghan negotiators had agreed on a draft deal allowing US troops to remain in the country beyond a 2014 deadline.

The Defence Force paid US$1,000 to the families of two elite Afghan soldiers who were killed while the SAS was mentoring them.

The mother of an SAS soldier honoured for his bravery in Afghanistan says nothing will compensate for his death but he "wouldn't have had it any other way".

An argument over a laptop is emerging as the incident which sparked the shooting of a New Zealand soldier in Afghanistan.

The exchange of gunfire that injured a New Zealand soldier in Afghanistan involved three rounds being fired towards the Kiwi from a lone Afghan soldier.

Former Labour MP Chris Carter says he was lucky to escape possible death after a suicide car bomb exploded metres away from his Afghanistan home.

Safe and sedate, Dunedin is a stark contrast to Afghanistan, where driving to work is risk and walking alone even more dangerous.