At least five Afghan civilians have been killed in southern Afghanistan during a protest against a Florida church's burning of the Muslim holy book.

Zalmai Ayubi, spokesman for the provincial governo

Afghan civilians were killed and wounded in an airstrike by international forces targeting a Taliban commander in the volatile Southern province of Helmand, Nato said on Saturday, giving no details of numbers.

US and Afghan officials were to go ahead with bilateral talks later this month after Washington postponed a planned trilateral meeting with Pakistan, an official said on Tuesday.

Nato says its air strikes have killed two key local Taliban leaders in Eastern Afghanistan.

Afghan lawmakers said on Friday they were holding talks with the government to try to resolve a standoff after President Hamid Karzai delayed opening the new fraud-hit parliament by a month.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai will visit Russia this week to discuss relations between the former foes, the foreign ministry in Kabul said on Monday.

A bomb blast in the Afghan capital killed a police officer and wounded three other people early on Tuesday, a government official said, on the day marking the adoption of the country's post-Taliban constitution.

The blast, a rarity in Kabul, served as a grim reminder of insurgents’ ability to strike at will across the country. It was a jarring preamble to the scheduled departure on Tuesday of members of a government-appointed peace delegation to Pakistan, where they will meet with Pakistani officials and discuss efforts to launch talks with Taliban rebels.

Nato says it has killed at least eight insurgents and captured a Taliban leader in several operations throughout Afghanistan.

A coalition patrol fought off an insurgent attack in mountainous eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, on a day when two servicemen were killed in the country's troubled south, bringing the death toll for foreign troops in the country 2010 to 700, according to an AP count.

NATO says one of its service members has been killed in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan.

A coalition statement said the person was killed on Monday. It provided no other details.