New Delhi/Kabul  - Under the very eyes of international troops Afghanistan has grown into the world's second-largest drug producer.

Despite a slight retraction in previous years the country once again accounted for 93 per cent of worldwide opium production in 2008.

Opium is the base substance for producing heroin.

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.

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.

Helmand (Kabul), Jan 23: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has urged Pakistan to cooperate in removing the menace of terrorism from the region.

Speaking in Helmand airbase in Southwest Afghanistan on Thursday, Karzai said there was need for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to work together to root out terrorism from the region.

He expressed the hope that Pakistan would extend its full cooperation in removing the menace from its soil.

Kabul  - Afghan and Indian foreign ministers vowed on Thursday to cooperate in the fight against terrorism in the region and said they had discussed ways of sharing intelligence and acting on it.

Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told a news conference in Kabul that he and his Afghan counterpart, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, and other Afghan officials had looked at ways "to strengthen our intelligence mechanism and to share information and intelligence and to act on it."

Kabul  - The US-led international coalition forces killed six suspected militants and detained another in an operation that targeted a network of roadside bomb makers and foreign fighters in southern Afghanistan, the military said Thursday.

The militants were killed in Day Chopan district of southern Zabul province on Wednesday after they opened fire on forces approaching their hideout, the US military said in a statement.