NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says Afghanistan must step up its fight against the Taliban.

Afghan forces said they have killed 50 more Taliban militants in the heaviest fighting in a western province since the fall of the Islamist regime in 2001.

Several Taliban militants were killed during two raids carried out by coalition forces in southern and eastern Afghanistan, the US-led force said.

A teenager was hanged by Taliban militants for having the U.S. money. Five US$1 bills were staffed in his mouth as a warning to other villagers not to use dollars, police said Monday. Taliban militants elsewhere killed eight police.

The negotiations that led to the release of 19 South Korean hostages this week by their Taliban captors are being described as a "triumph" for the Taliban by some western politicians and analysts.

Seven South Korean hostages, still being held by Taliban militants in Afghanistan, are expected to be released on Thursday, the Kyodo news agency said, citing a local mediator who has been involved in the negotiations.

Taliban militants have agreed to release all 19 South Korean hostages being held in Afghanistan, Seoul's Yonhap agency said, citing a spokesman for the South Korean president.

South Korean officials have resumed direct talks with the Taliban in central Afghanistan on 19 Koreans who have been held hostage by the militants for over a month.

South Korean negotiators are today meeting for a second time with Taliban militants who have been holding 21 South Koreans captive for more than three weeks. Today's talks follow a first round on August 10.

A South Korean report says Taliban militants holding 21 South Korean aid workers in Afghanistan have proposed exchanging some female hostages for imprisoned female supporters of the insurgents.

U.S. President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai today vowed to win the war against the Taliban. Bush and Karzai spoke at a news conference in Camp David, the presidential retreat near Washington, as they ended two days of talks on the crises confronting Afghanistan.

Provincial officials in southern Afghanistan today said that local and foreign forces killed at least 21 Taliban militants in an operation launched late on August 5.