Across Asia: Afghanistan

Ex-leader survives attack

A former Afghan president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, survived a Taliban ambush yesterday in northern Kunduz province, where militants clashed with police for a second straight night. Local officials said the violence jolted the once-quiet part of the country a week before a presidential election that the militants have vowed to disrupt.

In Helmand province in the south, at least nine civilians died when a van drove over a roadside bomb. Three teenaged boys were killed by a landmine that detonated outside an orphanage in neighbouring Kandahar province.