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.

An Afghan who claimed he had been kidnapped and tortured by members of the Taliban after working as an interpreter for Kiwi troops has been denied asylum in New Zealand.

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.

Militants in Pakistan's most populous province are said to be training for what they expect will be an ethnic-based civil war in neighbouring Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw in 16 months, according to analysts and a senior militant.

An Afghan man who spent years risking his life translating for New Zealand troops in Afghanistan is reportedly finding it hard to get a job in his new home.

Willie Apiata has paid tribute to his mother, calling her a hero who kept the family together through difficult times.

War in all its terror is becoming ever more visible. Helmet cameras and the like enable commanders to watch the fighting from the other side of the world and inevitably, the footage finds its way into the public eye.

War and uncertainty have left their mark on Kabul, but there is hope, writes Peter Feeney.

The mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan says footage released by the Defence Force of a firefight shows how well our soldiers are trained.

The Defence Force has issued footage from a chaotic 12-minute battle described as New Zealand's "biggest firefight since Vietnam" after a court of inquiry released its findings on two deadly incidents in Afghanistan that killed five Kiwis.

Details of a Defence Force inquiry into fatal attacks in Afghanistan have been released this afternoon, along with footage of one of the incidents.