TOLOnews 26 January 2012

Top news in this Bulletin:

At least three people including a child were killed in a suicide car bomb blast in southern Helmand province on Thursday, local officials said.

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Thirty two others including a foreign woman were wounded in the blast.

The blast occurred at 10:30 am local time near British PRT, Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for provincial governor told TOLOnews reporter.

The US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said that despite the killings of Osama Bin Laden and radical US-Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki the al-Qaeda terror network remains a "real threat to the United States."

"We're going after al-Qaeda, wherever they're at," Panetta told CBS in a recent interview.

Asked if the US forces had defeated al-Qaeda, Mt Panetta said not yet.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Italy on Wednesday and met his Italian counterpart Giorgio Napolitano in advance of signing a strategic partnership agreement, the Office of the President said.

Mr Karzai left Kabul for Europe on Tuesday for a four-day tour to sign strategic partnership agreements with Britain, France, Italy, and Turkmenistan.

Mr Karzai met Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to discuss issues of mutual interest, including the current situation in Afghanistan.