KABUL, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Afghanistan is keen to work with Pakistan to fight Islamic extremism, but Islamabad must rein in elements in the government that are 'out of control,' the Afghan foreign minister said Wednesday.

KABUL, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - A US Marine deployed in Afghanistan to fight Taliban extremists was killed by a bomb while five policemen and several rebels died in new clashes, US and Afghan officials said Wednesday.

The Marine was badly wounded when the explosion hit a military patrol in the western province of Farah on Monday, the US-led coalition said.

JALALABAD, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - About 200 people, mostly Islamic clerics and mullahs, demonstrated here Wednesday to protest the detention of 'innocent people' by US-led forces in eastern Afghanistan, witnesses said.

The men blocked a key road between the eastern town of Jalalabad and the Pakistani border, demanding the release of a cleric detained by US forces over the weekend.

BERLIN, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - A German-Afghan man has been missing for over a week in Kabul and is believed to have been kidnapped, the foreign ministry in Berlin said Wednesday.

'We assume he has fallen victim to a criminal abduction,' ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner told a regular government news conference.

SEOUL, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - US President George W. Bush urged South Korea Tuesday to send personnel back to Afghanistan, saying the war-torn country needs 'non-combat' help.

He was speaking after a summit with South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak.

KABUL, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - A soldier with a US-led military coalition in Afghanistan to fight Taliban and other extremists has died two days after being injured in an explosion, the force said Wednesday.

The US-led coalition did not give the nationality of the dead soldier, though most troops in the force are American.

BEHSUD, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - The attack was two days ago but fire still smoulders in a house and two shops in a small village in remote central Afghanistan.

'The nomads came down from the mountains, they broke doors and looted the shops,' says a toothless old man who owns one of the destroyed shops, a grocery store. 'What can I do now? I lost everything.'

NEW YORK, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - A Pakistani mother who graduated from a top US university, then vanished five years ago, was charged Tuesday in New York with attempted murder of US officers in Afghanistan, in a case prompting protests from her homeland.

WASHINGTON, August 5, 2008 (AFP) - The Pentagon has extended the deployment of 1,250 Marines in Afghanistan for 30 days until November to keep up the momentum of training of Afghan security forces, a spokesman said Tuesday.

KARACHI, August 5, 2008 (AFP) - A female Pakistani neuroscientist was due in a US court Tuesday after being extradited to the United States on charges of shooting at American soldiers while in detention in Afghanistan.