By Amie Ferris-Rotman and Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban militants launched a coordinated attack on a U.N. compound in the center of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Friday setting off explosions and battling the security forces. A plume of smoke hung over the city center after the attack was launched, eight days after six Americans, soldiers and civilians, and nine Afghans were killed in a suicide car bombing in Kabul.

By Matt Spetalnick and Warren Strobel WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Twelve years after the "war on terror" began, President Barack Obama wants to pull the United States back from some of the most controversial aspects of its global fight against Islamist militants. In a major policy speech on Thursday, Obama narrowed the scope of the targeted-killing drone campaign against al Qaeda and its allies and took steps toward closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.

A suicide bomber struck outside government buildings in northern Afghanistan on Monday, killing 14 people including a local politician in the latest attack to target provincial officials. Emergency services rushed to the scene and took the wounded to hospital after the bomber, who was wearing police uniform, blew himself up next to Rasoul Mohseni, the head of Baghlan's provincial council.

A suicide car bomb targeted a foreign military convoy in Kabul on Thursday, killing 15 people including five Americans in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital for nearly a year, officials said. The powerful explosion, which struck at 8:00 am (0330 GMT) in the Shah Shaheed southeastern residential district, also injured about 40 passers-by including many children going to school, officials said. Nine Afghans including two children died, along with two US soldiers and four NATO-contracted civilians who were travelling through the city's busy rush-hour traffic.