Police backed by the US-led coalition forces killed 15 Taliban militants during a mop-up operation on Sunday in the eastern Afghan province of Khost and arrested two.

Notwithstanding their acrimonious campaign against each other, rival White House hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain will together pay homage to victims of the 9/11 terror attacks during a ceremony in New York on Thursday.

The special TADA court on Sunday remanded two persons deported from Nepal, to judicial custody till Monday in connection with the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.

An army jawan was killed and two others injured in a fierce gunbattle in Ramban district of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday.

Up to 10 people were feared killed and several more injured on Saturday in a powerful explosion on a police check-post on the outskirts of the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar.

Two Indian aides of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, suspected of having a role in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts that killed 257 people, were arrested by the Nepal police in Kathmandu.

Describing terrorism as a "pervasive and insidious" threat to global security, India has sought a concerted action to root out its networks and deter regimes from encouraging and harbouring armed extremists.

Israel's national security council counter-terrorism bureau has issued a warning to its nationals to avoid travelling to Jammu and Kashmir and suggesting that those already there should leave at once.

As Pakistani Taliban claimed on Tuesday that they were holding two Chinese telecoms engineers as prisoners and would soon issue a list of demands, Beijing has urged Pakistan to rescue the hostages and ensure their security.

At least eight people were killed on Tuesday, as warring Sunni and Shiite Muslims defied a self-declared ceasefire in Pakistan's Khurram tribal district, officials said.

At least seven people were killed and seven wounded on Tuesday in a car bomb explosion at a security checkpost in Iraq's Nineveh provincial capital of Mosul, the police said.

Britain's elite force SAS is waging a "secret war" in Iraq that has led to more than 3,500 insurgents being "taken off the streets of Baghdad," a news report has said.

At least 81 Tamil Tigers and two army personnel were killed in fierce fighting in Sri Lanka's restive northern areas as troops gained control of several LTTE outposts in the rebel stronghold of Mullaittivu.

Upto 95 people were reportedly killed and 200 injured in a single day of clashes between rival tribes in Pakistan's troubled North West Frontier Province, which is already engulfed by steep rise in militancy violence.

The Border Security Force has ordered a Court of Inquiry into the infiltration of three militants along the Indo-Pak border in Khour belt  in Jammu on August 26.

The Tamil Tigers said on Sunday that military shelling in the rebel-held Kilinochchi district in Sri Lanka had killed five Tamil civilians, including two children, displaced by fighting.

The military said on Saturday a bomb blast blamed on separatist Tamil Tigers has wounded 45 people in Sri Lanka's capital.

At least 22 pro-Taliban militants have been killed as jet planes pounded insurgents' position, while four people died when troops foiled a car suicide bombing in northwest Pakistan, security officials said.

President George W Bush has been kept fully briefed about the situation in Pakistan and rise in violence across the border with India since the exit former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf.

The children - Sheetal (9), Vipin (2), Ashad (7) and Kajal (4) - said they were scared and were very happy that they have been rescued.

Army's Special Forces shot dead the last of the three suspected LeT militants early Thursday and freed seven hostages including four children they seized in a house near Jammu.

India on Wednesday lodged a strong protest with Pakistan for pushing in militants in Jammu and Kashmir in the cover of firing from across the border.

A suicide bomber on Tuesday rushed into a crowd of police recruits in central Iraq and detonated his explosives-laden vest, killing at least 25 people and wounding 40, the local police chief said.

"A massive operation is on to track down the militants as BSF, army and police have cordoned off the entire belt and tracker dogs have been pressed into operation," BSF Deputy Inspector General S Sagwan said.