Four U.S. service members were killed in the past 24 hours in Afghanistan, NATO forces said Monday.

Afghan police say Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a parliamentarian and powerful former warlord, has narrowly escaped an assassination attempt near Kabul.

A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle killed 16 people, including two children and a policeman, and wounded at least 23 others Friday in a busy city square in western Afghanistan, officials said.

NATO says two U.S. service members have been killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan.

Afghanistan will prosecute corrupt officials and control its own security within five years, President Hamid Karzai pledged Thursday in an inauguration speech made under intense pressure to shed the cronyism and graft that marked his government’s first term.

A soldier from Chesterfield County has been missing since a resupply mission in Afghanistan that claimed the life of a unit member from Massachusetts, the U.S. Department of Defense said yesterday. Sgt. Brandon T. Islip, 23, of Chesterfield, and Sgt. Benjamin W. Sherman, 21, of Plymouth, Mass., were swept away in a river Nov. 4 in Bala Murghab, Afghanistan, officials confirmed yesterday.

A soldier from Richmond has been missing since a resupply mission in Afghanistan Nov. 4 that claimed the life of another unit member from Massachusetts, the U.S. Defense Department said today.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has arrived in Afghanistan to attend Thursday’s inauguration of President Hamid Karzai and meet with top U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChystal.

A bomb-sniffing dog that disappeared during a fierce battle in Afghanistan between Australian troops and militant fighters has been found and returned to its unit after more than a year.

NATO says Afghan and foreign troops have killed more than 130 insurgents, including eight Taliban commanders, in six days of fierce fighting during a major offensive in northern Afghanistan.

Hundreds of Afghan and international troops already battling a rising militant insurgency are facing a new fight — recovering from swine flu, the virus that has left 11 people dead in the country.

Quotations on Afghanistan and nationalizing the practice of medicine . . . Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan: “I believe that the loss of stability in Afghanistan brings huge risks that transnational terrorists such as al-Qaida will operate from within Afghanistan again.“ Retired Marine John Bernard, following the death in Afghanistan of his son, Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard—on the U.S. mission there: “We’ve abandoned Marines [and soldiers by denying them artillery and air support for fear of killing civilians] in this Catch-22 where we’re supposed to defend the population, but we can’t defend them because we can’t engage the enemy that is supposed to be the problem.“

NATO strike said to kill Afghan troops KABUL—Afghan officials said yesterday that a NATO airstrike inadvertently killed several Afghan soldiers and policemen a day earlier in northwestern Afghanistan. The airstrike took place amid fighting in Badghis province as Afghan and U.S. troops were looking for two U.S. paratroopers who disappeared Wednesday.

KABUL—The challenger in Afghanistan’s recent election called President Hamid Karzai’s victory illegal and his government a failure, saying yesterday that the tainted administration would not be able to check corruption or fend off the Taliban. Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said he did not plan to challenge Karzai’s victory in court but would leave it to the Afghan people to decide whether to accept Karzai as their legitimate leader for another five-year term.

KABUL—Hamid Karzai was declared the winner by default yesterday in Afghanistan’s fraud-marred presidential election, increasing the pressure on President Barack Obama to end his deliberations over whether to send more troops. Obama welcomed Karzai’s election with as much admonishment as praise, telling America’s partner in war that he expects a more serious effort to end corruption in his government and prepare his nation to defend itself when international troops ultimately withdraw.