Moscow/Tashkent, Uzbekistan - Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov agreed Wednesday to allow NATO and US troops transit through the Central Asian country to supply operations in Afghanistan.

Uzbekistan joins Tajikistan and Russia in officially approving the shipment of building supplies, medicines and water for use by US-led coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan.

"Uzbekistan has agreed to the transit of non-military cargo to Afghanistan," Karimov was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying.

Kabul  - Two Afghan soldiers with a counternarcotics unit and five militants were killed in a clash in southern Afghanistan while Afghan and US-led coalition forces killed 10 militants in the same region, officials said Wednesday.

A group of militants attacked counternarcotics soldiers Tuesday while they were eradicating poppy fields in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province, said Daoud Ahamdi, spokesman for the provincial governor.

Islamabad, Feb. 25: The Swat peace deal may be seen as an initiative to bring peace in the insurgency ravaged valley, but experts feel that the outlawed militant groups such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda opted for the truce because they wanted to focus, and prepare themselves for what may be a final assault on them by the allied forces in Afghanistan in near future.

Lahore, Feb. 25: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has termed the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as the `main threat of global terrorism'.

FBI chief Robert Mueller, said the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan are breeding grounds of terrorism.

He told Voice of America (VOI), that he had fears about a home grown terror threat.

Islamabad  - The leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan has directed Pakistani militants to immediately halt attacks on Pakistani forces and divert their resources to defeat the US-led international forces in Afghanistan, a media report said on Tuesday.

Mullah Mohammad Omar, the head of ousted Taliban regime, in a letter addressed to the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leadership and other militant leaders, said that fighting fellow Muslims was not jihad.

Kabul  - Four US-led soldiers and their Afghan colleague were killed in a roadside bomb blast in southern Afghanistan, while 16 militants and two children were killed in separate incidents in the same region, the military said on Tuesday.

The soldiers and the Afghan civilian who was working with the military were killed when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb Tuesday afternoon, the US military said in a statement.