Afghanistan's government must show progress on eradicating rampant corruption or risk losing the support of the United States, which helps it stay in power, a senior US politician said on Wednesday.

A NATO soldier was killed by a bomb in southern Afghanistan on Monday, the military said, adding to a toll of victims of explosives laid by insurgents which is rising almost daily.

Bodies of two American and six German doctors have been found in northern Afghanistan, a police official told AFP on Saturday.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai left on Thursday for neighbouring Iran to attend a regional conference, his office said.

Dozens of people were killed and thousands had to be rescued after flash floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains that struck Afghanistan’s northeast, officials said on Saturday.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday urged his Western allies to destroy Islamist militant sanctuaries in neighbouring Pakistan after thousands of secret US files were leaked.

The Afghan government has said that 52 civilians, including women and children, died when a NATO rocket struck a village in southern Afghanistan last week, a report disputed by the international coalition.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered an investigation into the deaths of "a number" of civilians in a rocket attack in southern Afghanistan, his spokesman told AFP
on Monday.

Twenty six people were killed when a speeding bus crashed in southern Afghanistan on Monday, the police said.

A rocket attack on a village in southern Afghanistan killed at least 45 civilians, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai told AFP on Monday.