Berlin  - Senior NATO officers responsible for fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan have rejected an order also to fight non- Taliban drug gangs, according to news reports which were confirmed by German military sources on Thursday.

A US general in Kabul and a German general overseeing NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Europe have told the NATO supreme commander, General John Craddock of the United States, that his order is illegal.

Kabul  - Afghanistan will hold presidential elections on August 20, a delay of several months, government officials said Thursday.

Azizullah Ludin, the head of the country's election commission, said the delay was due to security and budget problems as well as technical complications. The term of President Hamid Karzai expires on May 22, according to the Afghan constitution, which would have required an election to be held 30 to 60 days beforehand.

Karzai, who has been in power since the ouster of the militant Taliban regime in 2001, will run for another term.

Prague - The European Union plans to increase its staff of legal and police advisers in Afghanistan in the coming months, announced EU officials after meeting with their Afghan counterparts in Prague Wednesday.

The current contingent of 180 advisers is expected to rise to 400 under the plan laid out by Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg after meeting with Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta.

Schwarzenberg was speaking in the name of the EU presidency, which is currently held by the Czech Republic through June.

Kabul - Afghan government said Wednesday that it would seek a "national decision" on what to be done with international military operations in the country if the NATO-led alliance does not respond to a draft agreement that calls for an end to civilian casualties within the period of one month.

The government sent an eleven-article draft to NATO headquarters in January 10, asking the alliance to avoid civilian casualties during their war against Taliban and al-Qaeda targets by coordinating their operations closely with Afghan authorities.

Kabul, Jan. 28 : US commander in Afghanistan General David McKiernan has decided to take the information war to the Taliban in a bid to expose the false news that American and NATO troops are responsible for the rise in civilian casualties in that war ravaged landlocked country.

According to CBS, the U. S. military says that the Taliban kills 80 percent of Afghan civilians. And they fight back with their own video. One video shows 14 children on their way to school, meeting a suicide bomber.