US-donated medicines and pharmaceutical supplies meant to keep the new Afghan Army and the police healthy have been disappearing before reaching Afghan military hospitals and clinics, and the governme

A Nato airstrike has killed four Afghan soldiers who the coalition said were mistaken for militants in the country's south, a spokesman for the Afghan defence ministry said on Thrusday.

A Nato service member died in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan early on Wednesday, the military coalition said. No further details were released.

The US-led Nato alliance in Afghanistan warned on Monday that foreign soldiers will face further violence in 2011, capping what has been the deadliest year of the war on record.

Nato said on Monday that its troops had captured a member of the Al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network in connection with a weekend suicide attack on an Afghan flea market that killed four soldiers.

The US-led war in Afghanistan is now longer than the Soviets' futile campaign in the benighted nation and after nine years and 50 days of battle, the West is also groping for an exit.

Nato says it has captured a leader of a Pakistan-based Taliban faction closely tied to Al-Qaida.

The Gunmen firing on a car killed a local government official and two of his relatives in the country's east on Sunday, officials said.

Nato says Afghan and coalition forces have killed at least 15 insurgents in eastern Afghanistan in an overnight operation.

At least two suicide bombers stormed a police headquarters in southeastern Afghanistan Saturday, killing 12, officials said.