US Senator John McCain predicted an allied win in Afghanistan in one year to 18 months if sufficient troops are sent, as the White House mulls sending tens of thousands of reinforcements.

Bomb attacks on Friday killed 23 people in Afghanistan, a deadly start to President Hamid Karzai's second term that underscored spiralling insecurity nine years into the US-led war.

A suicide bomber killed 16 people and wounded at least 23 others Friday in a busy city square in western Afghanistan, while near Kabul a powerful former warlord narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, officials said.

Bombers on Friday killed 18 people in Afghanistan, a deadly start to President Hamid Karzai's second term in office that underscored spiralling insecurity nine years into the US-led war.

A suicide bomber on a motorcycle detonated his explosives in a crowded area in southwest Afghanistan on Friday, killing 17 people, including a senior police official, a provincial governor said.

Eight years after a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, the war-ravaged state is the most dangerous place in the world for a child to be born, the United Nations said on Thursday.

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.

President Obama wants Pakistan to fight Afghan Taliban elements on its soil, but Islamabad's priority is those who challenge its own authority. Besides, the Afghan Taliban gives Pakistan leverage in shaping Afghanistan's future

Any surge of US troops to Afghanistan is likely to be tougher than it was in Iraq, because of the dearth of good roads and airfields, say defense officials.

A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle killed 13 people, including a police officer, and wounded 30 others Friday in a busy city square in western Afghanistan.