A passenger bus in Afghanistan collided Friday with a wrecked fuel tanker left on a road after a Taliban insurgent attack, killing at least 45 people, officials said. The accident occurred before dawn in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province when the packed bus ploughed into the tanker, which had been burnt out in a Taliban strike several days ago. "Tragically, around 4:00 am, the passenger bus collided with a fuel tanker," Javid Faisal, spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor, told AFP. "We have 45 passengers dead in this accident and ten others wounded."

A female American diplomat and six NATO personnel were killed on Saturday in two separate attacks in Afghanistan, officials said, in the deadliest day for foreign forces this year. Three US soldiers and two American civilians were among the dead, a US security source said, while the State Department added Afghans were also killed. In the southern province of Zabul, a Taliban car bomb struck a NATO convoy killing three troops and two civilian workers according to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The American troops were travelling in a convoy of vehicles

A Frenchman held hostage for more than four months in Afghanistan has been freed in a Taliban-troubled area near Kabul, officials said Monday. Pierre Borghi, who was trying to establish himself as a photographer in Kabul, was freed in Wardak province outside the capital on Sunday night, Afghan police said. "He has been released," a spokesman for the French embassy in Kabul told AFP, giving no further details. The circumstances of his release was not immediately clear. Wardak is troubled by a Taliban-led insurgency but there has been no claim for Borghi's kidnapping.