Kabul - A suicide bomber attacked a convoy of international troops in Kabul, killing only himself, while dozens of Taliban militants were killed in firefights with Afghan and international forces elsewhere, officials said Saturday.

A bomber detonated his explosive-laden vehicle near a convoy of international forces in Pajhman, on the western outskirts of Kabul on Saturday morning, killing himself but causing no casualties among the NATO soldiers, provincial police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi said.

Berlin  - The German military are mulling plans to build a 67- kilometre railway in Afghanistan to haul in supplies from nearby Uzbekistan, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday.

It said the line would connect the main German logistics base in Afghanistan, at Mazar-i-Sharif, with the town of Hairatan on the Uzbek border, where a bridge was erected by the Soviets in 1982 crossing the Amudarya border river.

Islamabad, August 30 : French and Afghan archaeologists have unearthed the head of a Buddha statue and a precious coin in the province of Bamiyan in Afghanistan.

The statue’s head belongs to the period when Buddhism thrived in the central province and the coin dates back to the time of Alexander and the Greek empire, according to Najeebullah Ahrar, the director of the information and culture department in the province.

According to a report in Pak Tribune, the team of Afghan and French archaeologists is working under the supervision of Professor Zemaryalai Tarzi, an Afghan archaeologist.

Berlin - Three Afghan civilians have been killed and a number of others injured in a shooting incident at a checkpoint manned by German troops and Afghan security forces near the northern city of Kunduz, the German Defence Ministry said in Berlin Friday.

The incident, which occurred to the south-east of the city in a region where German troops lead the operations of the international Security Assistance Force (ISAF), had taken place on Thursday evening, Defence Ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe said.

Two civilian vehicles approaching the checkpoint had failed to heed clear signals from the troops manning the checkpoint, and the security forces had then opened fire, Raabe said.

It was not clear whether German or Afghan forces had fired.

Washington, Aug 29 : The US is worried about the lack of a larger plan to improve the deteriorating security scenario in Afghanistan as senior defence officials are debating how many troops they can send there and how soon to bring the situation under control.

The Christian Science Monitor (CSM) reports that as political pressure mounts to do more to stop the violence in Afghanistan, there is an increasing fear in the Pentagon that sending in more forces is just a stopgap measure that masks the absence of a broader, viable strategy.

Kabul - Almost a dozen Taliban militants were killed in a fight with US-led coalition forces in south-eastern Paktika province, the US military claimed Friday.

In a bid to disrupt militant activities, the combined forces searched compounds in Bermel district of the province on Thursday, the statement said.

The militants inside the compounds engaged the forces during their search, the statement said, adding, "The forces responded with small-arms fire, killing the militants."