Kabul - A Canadian soldier and ten Taliban insurgents were killed in separate blasts and clashes in southern Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

The Canadian soldier was killed and four others were wounded in a roadside bomb blast in Shah Walikot district of southern Kandahar province, Canadian defence ministry and the NATO military alliance said in statements.

The soldiers were conducting security operations in the area on Sunday when the explosion occurred, the military said.

Kabul - The number of abductions has risen dramatically in Afghanistan, a confidential paper by the Interior Ministry said.

In the first six months of 2008, 175 people were abducted in Afghanistan, compared with 96 in the same period the previous year, the paper, which was obtained by Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, said.

Experts believe the real number of kidnappings is much higher, as many cases are not reported to police out of fear for the victims.

London  - International troops in Afghanistan are "not winning" in the their battle against Taliban forces in the south of the country, the head of US and international forces warned Monday.

General David McKiernan told the BBC that while they were winning in some places, there were large areas - particularly in the south where British forces are based - where more needed to be done to get on top of the situation.

"There are other areas - large areas in the southern Afghanistan especially but in parts of the east - where we are not winning, where more has to happen along multiple lines of operation in order for anybody by any metric to say that the Afghans are winning or the efforts of the coalition are winning," he said.

London, Mar 9: Leading Afghanistan opposition figures have opposed US President Barack Obama’s call for “moderate” Taliban members to be brought into the mainstream, and warned that co-opting fighters would fail as long as Hamid Karzai’s government is weak and corrupt.

Obama floated the idea of appealing to Taliban adherents who are alienated by the extremism of al-Qaida fighters and might be prepared to switch sides after repeating a successful strategy in Iraq, The Guardian reported.

Kabul  - One NATO soldier was killed and two injured in a roadside bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan, the military said Sunday.

The soldiers, who were part of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), were attacked during a patrol on Sunday, the alliance said in a statement.

Taliban militants rely heavily on use of roadside bombings as part of their campaign to topple the Western-backed Afghan government seven years after the ouster of their ultra-Islamist regime.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama would consider a reconciliation effort to reach out to moderate members of the Taliban in order to turn around the conflict in Afghanistan, according to an interview published by the New York Times on Sunday.

Obama, who is working to increase the US military presence in Afghanistan with an additional 17,000 troops, said the idea of a deal could mirror efforts in Iraq that have been partially credited with improving the security situation there.