Three British soldiers killed in Afghanistan

KABUL: Three Nato troops killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan were British, officials said on Wednesday.

The three soldiers from the Royal Highland Fusiliers died on Tuesday when their vehicle was hit on a routine patrol in the district of Nahr-e Saraj, part of the southern province Helmand.

“Their deaths come as a great loss to all those serving in Task Force Helmand,” army spokesman Major Richard Morgan said in a statement from London.

Bomb suspicion diverts Turkish plane en route to Afghanistan

A Turkish Airlines plane en route to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, returned to Turkey after an abandoned mobile phone found onboard caused panic.

An Airbus 320 with flight number TK-706 left Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport with 135 passengers at 3:05 this morning, but a mobile phone alarmed the cabin crew when no one claimed ownership.

The captain decided to land after informing police, who took strong precautionary measures in the apron.
The plane landed at Atatürk Airport nearly 2.5 hours after taking off.

Kabul, Islamabad holding talks on extradition treaty

PESHAWAR: Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan, Mohammad Umer Daudzai, has said the Afghan and Pakistan governments were holding talks on an extradition treaty that would resolve the problem of handing over wanted persons to each other.
Talking to a small group of reporters during his visit to Peshawar on Wednesday, he pointed out that Afghanistan has signed judicial agreements with Iran and Tajikistan and would like to conclude a similar one with Pakistan. “The judicial agreement covers extradition and also the issue of attorneys and witnesses in legal cases,” he added.

Daudzai recalled that Pakistan had declined to hand over jailed Afghan Taliban figures to Afghanistan citing the absence of an extradition treaty between the two countries. In reply to a question regarding Pakistan’s request to the Afghan government to hand over Pakistani Taliban commander Mauivi Faqir Mohammad to it, he said Kabul was still trying to determine if the man captured in Afghanistan is Faqir Mohammad. “We have assured the Pakistan government that he won’t be released once it was determined that he was indeed Maulvi Faqir Mohammad. However, we won’t be able to hand him over to Pakistan as we don’t have an extradition treaty,” he argued.

US cedes full control of Bagram prison to Afghan forces

KABUL :Afghanistan on Monday took full control of Bagram military prison from the United States, healing one running sore in their testy relationship as US-led forces wind down more than a decade of war.

President Hamid Karzai had made the fate of the detention centre north of Kabul part of his ill-tempered push to regain sovereignty over key matters from the Americans, ahead of next year's pullout of foreign combat troops.