By Amie Ferris-Rotman and Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban militants launched a large-scale attack involving the United Nations in the center of the Afghan capital Kabul on Friday, sparking a five-hour battle with security forces. A plume of smoke hung over Kabul after the attack was launched, with the sound of .50 caliber heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire clearly audible throughout the city center as night fell. An Afghan police officer was killed and 10 other people were wounded during the attack, which began at 4 p.m. ...

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Syria's opposition resumed talks on Saturday aimed at creating a coherent front crucial to a proposed international peace conference, struggling under Western and Arab pressure to close their fractious ranks and elect a viable leadership. Failure of the opposition to unite could weaken the hand of conference co-sponsors Russia and the United States in ending Syria's civil war, which has killed 80,000 people and threatens to spill across borders and whip up wider sectarian conflict. The U.S. ...

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's military has freed a number of women and children held hostage by Islamist sect Boko Haram, the army said on Saturday, after its offensive in the northeast of the country overran three of the insurgents' camps. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said in a video earlier this month that the group had kidnapped several women and children in retaliation against security forces who, it says, detained the wives and children of its members without cause. ...