"Hajj flights are being given absolute priority over coalition aircraft" in using Afghan airspace, said Jonathan Turner, a spokesman for the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.Speaking to reporters at the presidential palace in Kabul, Mr Karzai said that more suspects had been arrested for the killing of Abdul Rahman, the aviation and tourism minister. He said that he expected three senior government officials wanted in connection with the minister's death on Thursday would be sent back from Saudi Arabia.Mr Karzai met with the Saudi ambassador yesterday and said afterwards that two of the suspects were already in Saudi custody. He added that five people were being held in Kabul and two others were being sought.In another development, US jets bombed a former al-Qai'da training camp near the Pakistan border. Four jets dropped a total of six bombs shortly before dawn in the Khugai area of Paktia province south of Kabul, according to one resident, Munir Hussein Tori. The area is about 15km (9 miles) from the village of Zawar, where US special forces have been seeking al-Qai'da and Taliban renegades.Officials from the Ministry of Information and Culture said that Afghan soldiers have found a videotape related to Osama bin Laden in the village of Kulangar, in Logar province. They had no details on the content of the tape and did not say when it was found. (AP)* Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, was arrested several days ago and is being held in Evin prison in the Iranian capital of Tehran, Hayat-e-Nou, a leading Iranian daily newspaper, has reported Iran's foreign ministry has denied the report..

Maoist rebels killed at least 129 people, including 76 police officers and 48 soldiers, in their biggest ever raid on police and army posts and a small airport in a remote mountainous district of western Nepal. The top civilian official in the district, Chief District Officer Mohan Singh Khadka, was killed, as was an official in the central intelligence bureau.The rebels also attacked the district's airstrip at Sanphe Bagar, 13 miles north, the area's lifeline to the rest of the country. Twenty-two policemen were killed but it is not known how many rebels died in the attack. They normally make a point of taking their dead with them after an assault.Four other policemen died in a separate attack on a police post at Lalbandi in Sarlahi district, 190 miles east of the capital. Police reinforcements are believed to have been sent, but were delayed from reaching the spot by bad weather and mountainous terrain.

Last night, Devendra Raj Kandel, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, said in the capital, Kathmandu, that more troops had been dropped by helicopter into the remote area.The scene of the attack is more than 380 miles north-west of Kathmandu with a population of 12,000, no roads for cars and little infrastructure. It has been a rebel stronghold for several years, and in many districts rebels have declared "people's governments". The Maoists are fighting to end Nepal's constitutional monarchy and replace it with a republic.Last July, the government opened peace talks with the rebels for the first time, but they broke down in November over the Maoists' refusal to compromise on the monarchy.Subsequently, the rebels launched attacks in 20 of the country's 75 districts, and on 26 November the government responded by declaring a state of emergency and deploying the army for the first time. Until that point the Maoists were getting the better of a lopsided conflict in which, in huge numbers, they raided remote police posts where demoralised officers vainly tried to defend themselves with ancient weaponry. The army, which owes direct loyalty to King Gyanendra, was supposed to make all the difference in putting an end to the insurgency. The new attacks prove that it will not be easy.The army claims to have killed nearly 500 Maoists since it was deployed, and to have captured 1,400.