Taliban seize Afghan villages

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Kandahar, said that hundreds of Taliban fighters are taking up positions in the area and taking over nearby villages.

"Sources from the Afghan army say that unless they get support from the Afghan national and international coalition forces, they won't be able to launch any counterattack," he said.

"If Arghandab is taken over by the Taliban, it will mean a significant shift in power, and people are concerned that this will be a step forward for the Taliban towards Kandahar."  

Child killed

  In other violence in Afghanistan, a 12-year-old child was killed by a roadside bomb, while a baby and a woman have been wounded in an air raid by US-led forces in the east of the country.

An interior ministry statement said on Monday the student was on his way to school in the Yaqoubi district of eastern Khost province when he was killed a day earlier.   A roadside blast also struck an Afghan army vehicle in the Girishk district of southern Helmand province on Sunday, wounding two soldiers, police said.   In the US-led air raid against Taliban fighters in the Arghandab district of southern Zabul province, two armed men were killed, police said.

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