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Eight Afghan soldiers were killed on Sunday as the situation in the troubled eastern Afghan provinces took a bloody turn with the blowing up of a military vehicle and violent demonstrations by supporters of the renegade Bacha Khan Zadran in Khost.

Nangarhar police chief and former Mujahideen commander, Haji Mohammed Zaman who resigned from office and returned to Pakistan after U.S. and British forces present in Jalalabad secured safe passage for him, said yesterday that Osama bin Laden was present in the strategic eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad during U.S. air strikes last November.

Low turnout was witnessed at the polling stations throughout NWFP in yesterday's referendum to elect Gen. Pervez Musharraf as president for the next five years, with polling stations in large parts of DI Khan, Karak, Lakki Marwat, Hangu, Tank and Bannu districts, deserted for most of the day.

Dozens of activists affiliated with religious parties and groups have been rounded up by police throughout the province ahead of the scheduled protest demonstrations today against the ongoing operation and raids on madrassas in tribal as well as settled districts of NWFP.

More than 3,500 girls may be forced to discontinue their studies as the teaching staff of the Higher Secondary School in Jalalabad have gone on strike to demand wages and better working conditions in educational institutions.

The Ministry for Higher Education of Afghanistan has adopted a unique strategy to appoint experienced educationists as vice chancellors of the universities and remove the political appointees in a peaceful manner.

Thousands of tribals in North Waziristan Agency yesterday threatened armed resistance against the government decision to allow joint raids by Pakistani and U.S. forces on religious institutions in pursuit of Taliban and Al Qaida members.

A religious school in the remote Bannu district of North West Frontier Province of Pakistan is drawing attention, as the defence counsels of the American Taliban, John Walker, carrying his letter met the head teacher of the madrasa on Friday to collect information to defend their client in a U.S. court.

The Afghan Women's Council has expressed regret over the treatment meted out to women in terms of representation in the Loya Jirga, the extreme poverty and hunger in Afghanistan, lawlessness and increasing incidents of rape and kidnappings in the Afghan capital under the interim set-up.

Taliban supreme leader Mullah Muhammad Omar has claimed in a letter that he, as well as the Al Qaida chief, Osama bin Laden, were alive and would appear in public at an appropriate time in the near future.

Two Arab nationals were arrested early yesterday from a village west of Peshawar on suspicion they were Al Qaida members.

Village Pattan in the remote Kohistan district of NWFP is preparing for the return of their prodigal – Mohammed Sagheer, 60, who was released along with three Afghan nationals by U.S. authorities from its Guantanamo Bay interrogation camp yesterday.