The statement -- citing bombings in the capital of Kabul and Afghanistan's spiritual city of Kandahar, and the recent hijackings of an Indian plane to Kandahar and an Afghan plane to Britain -- said the Taliban had been a victim of terrorism.

CNN: Afghan clashes end; Taliban says will combat terrorism

In the main square in Tirin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan Province, in central Afghanistan, a large billboard shows a human skeleton being hanged.

NEWYORKER: The Taliban��s Opium War

Quetta is the capital of Balochistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, and has been plagued by a separatist rebellion as well as sectarian violence.

BBC: Pakistan blast: Governor fury at 'intelligence failure'

In eastern Afghanistan, north of the capital, Kabul, U.S. warplanes targeted Taliban frontline troops Thursday along the Shamali Plains and the Shafy mountain range near the strategic Bagram air base.

CNN: New attacks on Kandahar

No-one in Paris - or any other Western capital - wants parts of Mali to become like Afghanistan in the 1990s - a place where acts of terror further afield could be planned and where people would then ask why something was not done earlier.

BBC: Islamists pose threat to French interests in Africa

Since U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in 2001, some women, in the capital of Kabul at least, have shed the burqa.

CNN: Obama ally breaks with him on Afghanistan

Heavily armed insurgents staged a series of attacks in Kabul and across Afghanistan, launching their largest assault on the capital since the Taliban were ousted from power more than a decade ago.

WSJ: What's News

Mullah Mohammad Omar, the leader of the movement, lives in Kandahar, in south Afghanistan, the de facto capital.

ECONOMIST: Afghanistan

Robert McKeon, chief of New York private equity firm Veritas Capital, is on the verge of exiting the most lucrative deal of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

FORBES: DynCorp Owner Cashes Out Of Wartime Investment

Much of Afghanistan is lawless and President Hamid Karzai's administration has little control outside the capital, Kabul.

BBC: An Afghan woman begs on the street, Kabul

Correspondents say the regional fighting underlines Afghanistan's continuing instability and the central government's lack of control outside the capital, Kabul.

BBC: Kabul seeks peace in Afghan west

Mr Karimov calls Osh, an ancient town in Kirgizstan, the capital of Wahhabism and has repeatedly spoken against the extremism of the Taliban, whose army has conquered most of neighbouring Afghanistan.

ECONOMIST: Central Asia