Taliban capture Afghan district

Afghan and US-led foreign forces have been
battling a resurgent Taliban [EPA]

Afghan security forces have recaptured a remote town that the Taliban had overtaken the previous day, officials said.   Taliban fighters attacked and captured Rashidan in Ghazni province late on Thursday, taking captive the district's government leader and eight police, officials said.

A defence ministry spokesman said Afghan security forces regained control of the town on Friday evening.   Radmanish, who goes by one name, said the fate of the nine captured men wasn't immediately clear.

First Lieutenant Nathan Perry, a spokesman for the US-led coalition, said reports indicated the Afghan forces encountered no resistance in Rashidan on Friday.

Taliban fighters have in the past briefly overrun remote district centres before Afghan or Nato forces again push them out. But Taliban fighters also control several areas in southern Afghanistan, particularly in Helmand province.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said the fighters attacked Rashidan on Thursday night and captured eight police and the local government leader, whom he named as Ghulam Shah.

The setting of this Shangri-La is, surprisingly, Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, dependent on international handouts, and experiencing a prolonged, bloody conflict.

The Afghan government is set to ask a conference of donor states in Paris next month for $500m (£250m) to start the construction of a "new Kabul" intended to replace the current ramshackle capital as part of a multibillion-dollar aid package. However, the West is likely to be unimpressed with requests for a lavish new capital at a time when the country lacks the most basic essentials, and there is widespread diversion of aid money into private pockets through corruption.

But Afghan officials insist that Kabul, originally built for 500,000 inhabitants but now hosting more than four million, with its shattered infrastructure and pollution, is simply incapable of being the hub of an Afghanistan trying to pull itself out of poverty. The plans for Dehsabz, sited on a huge stretch of open ground north of Kabul, also include an international airport and industrial zones.

"Kabul has been allowed to go without any proper planning ... We have multiple families living in single households often under very unsanitary conditions," said Mahmoud Saikal, the chief executive of the Dehsabz City Development Authority.

Amir Jan, a 48-year-old lorry driver, said of the plans: "People are being killed. I cannot drive down half the roads ... The government should be concerned with these things rather than some fancy new capital."