Afghanistan has again topped the list of the world's biggest narcotics producers with drug smugglers using a route through India more than in previous years, according to the US State Department.

The annual report on global trends in the illegal narcotics trade confirmed that Afghanistan retains its position as the world's top opiate producer.

It also said that the drugs smuggled in 2012 through India from Afghanistan are increasing via Pakistan.

Afghan Counter-Narcotics Deputy Minister Mohammad Ibrahim Azhar said the smugglers were finding new ways of transferring the drugs out of Afghanistan, namely a

"Because of some threats by Iran and Turkey countries in the border regions, the smugglers have changed their way of transferring drugs. Now they smuggle via Pakistan to another countries," he told TOLOnews Wednesday.

According to the Ministry, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan increased 18 percent from 2011 to 2012, but drug production dropped 40 percent mainly because of the government's poppy eradication drive whereby government and security forces physically destroy farmers' poppy crops.

Most of Afghanistan's poppy cultivation happens in the south and west areas of Afghanistan, both for its suitable climate and in areas where security is more lax.

Kabul's preliminary court of Zone 4 on Wednesday sentenced a man to death for stabbing an elderly driver to death.

The court also sentenced the father of the accused to four months prison for being linked to the incident.

The accused, who only goes by one name Ajmal, confessed his crime saying that he killed the driver for money and sold the car to his father for 100,000 Afs ($2,000).

"Previously I was a chef near the artillery depot in Sar-e-Kotal. I killed him there," Ajmal told the court.

Ajmal's father Farid has rejected his own sentence saying that he was the one who turned Ajmal over to be tried after his son deceived him into buying the car.

"I have handed this boy over to the government myself," he said.

Abdul Baset Bakhtiari, head of the preliminary court handed down a sentence for both the murder and the car theft.

"As guided by Article 395 of the Penal Code, we sentence you with the name Ajmal son of Mohammad Farid to the most extreme punishment of execution for the killing of Abdul Qader," he said.

"Regarding the theft of the car, we sentence you to seven years imprisonment as guided by Article 465 of the mentioned code," he added.

A relative of the elderly victim said the verdict for Ajmal's father was too light.

"I didn't expect this (verdict) for his father. I want the next court to have a more serious sentence for his father," said one of the relatives.

Ajmal has been imprisoned previously for other crimes, including two years for home theft. He said that his other inmates in the prison encouraged him to kill.

A suicide attack in northern Kunduz province Wednesday evening has killed the father and two brothers of the Parliament speaker of the house Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi, officials said.

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Afghanistan's intelligence agency Wednesday said it thwarted a potential suicide attack in the country's capital Kabul after discovering the hideout of a group of Haqqani Network insurgents.

According to the National Directorate of Security, seven militants linked to the Haqqani Network were planning to launch a huge suicide attack on one of Kabul's military institutions but they were found by NDS officers in Area 16 of Kabul's Alwo Khail district.

Five of the insurgents were killed in the resulting clash with NDS officers who attacked the hideout, while two others were detained with a large amount of weapons, the NDS said in a statement.

It comes the same day that a suicide attack in northern Kunduz province killed the father and brother of the Parliament's speaker of the house Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi.

The suicide attack at a buzkashi match in the Imam Sahib district is reported to have killed as many as six people and injured eight.

Ibrahimi's brother Qayoum was the district police chief of Imam Sahib.

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Afghanistan's intelligence agency Wednesday said it thwarted a potential suicide attack in the country's capital Kabul after discovering the hideout of a group of Haqqani Network insurgents.

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China's parliament named Xi Jinping as president Thursday, four months after he took charge of the Communist Party with pledges of reform that have raised hopes but so far yielded little change.

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Afghanistan's senate has set up a commission to address the problem of land grabbing in the country amid reports of powerful figures taking control of large tracts of land.

"The Senate and the land disputes resolution commission promises to do its best against land grabbing by powerful figures and it will soon share its achievements with the Afghan people ," Senator Nesar Ahmad Harris said Wednesday.

The Land Disputes Resolution Commission accused high-ranking government officials and relatives of those in power of claiming land that was not their own. They warned they would soon disclose the names of all land grabbers.

"The lands are being [illegally] claimed mostly by the president's relatives and vice presidents relatives," Senator Haji Mohammad Naaem Popal said.

Kabul's Police Headquarters said that land grabbers would be arrested by police.

"If they are recognised, we will proceed to arrest them and hand them over to higher authorities ," Deputy of Kabul Police Mohammad Daoud Amin said.

The problem of land grabbing has been happening for a decade with around 4 million acres believed to have been wrongly claimed.

It comes as Nangarhar's provincial council and residents on Wednesday voiced their concerns over the increase of land grabbing in the province.

Council members said that recently a person has claimed Amanullah Khan garden in Jalalabad city after having introduced himself as Amanullah Khan's family attorney.

"We can't tolerate land grabbing here in our province. We ask government to stop them otherwise we will have a big disaster ," Nangarhar provincial council member Abdul Basir Gulab said.

Nangarhar Governor Gul Agha Shirzai said that Amanullah Khan garden is government property.

"Amanullah Khan garden is government property. Nobody has the right to claim it," he said.

The governor and residents asked the central government to avoid land grabbing in the province otherwise they threatened to start demonstrating over the issue.

Afghanistan's Attorney General's Office will seek harsher penalties for those found guilty of aiding Kabul Bank's collapse, saying that the verdict of the special tribunal on the crisis was too soft.

Last week, the special court for Kabul Bank crisis sentenced 21 persons to imprisonment of up to five years and fines.

"Following our talks with responsible attorneys who have worked here, we concluded that the verdict issued by the special court for Kabul Bank is not in accordance with the law as described by attorney's side, our description of the crime, and the previously demanded punishments," said Sayed Alam Ishaqzai, head of the Attorney General's Afghan Anti-Corruption Prosecution.

"Therefore we will ask for an appeal and we will provide it to the responsible source of the Supreme Court," he added.

On the other hand, the head of the special court Shamsurrahman Shams has said that five years of imprisonment – the sentence handed down to former Kabul Bank chairman Shir Khan Farnood and CEO Khalilullah Firoozi – is the highest level of imprisonment according to the country's penal code.

"Besides penalising them, we fined them... the interest of the money too," Shams said.

"The punishment we handed them is for barratry, for which the highest punishment is five years. There is a medium imprisonment (for it) that is one to five years and we issued them five years. The judges do not have competency to verdict a punishment higher than what the law has set," he said.

"The court's verdict is the final verdict and no other source can change it, not even the president," he added.

However, the Attorney General said that in accordance with its framework and qualifications, it has the right to call for an appeal, and it expects more serious verdicts from the next courts.

Residents of Zabul province gathered on Thursday in the provincial capital Qalat and called for an end to poppy cultivation.

Most of the residents at the gathering pledged that they will not allow anyone to cultivate poppy in Zabul Province, and if anyone does they will be handed over to the law.

In exchange, the residents called on the government to provide them with work opportunities, particularly for the young people in the province.

"Drugs are all banned in Islam and what we are cultivating we should ban that," one the residents said.

The Zabul provincial governor Mohammad Ashraf Nasiri praised the residents' commitment and said that the government will do all it can to solve their problems.

"Last year a number of students in Zabul was 60,000, but this year we will try to raise this number to 100,000 students," Nasiri said.

The Zabul residents warned that if employment opportunities for Zabul residents do not improve, problems will increase in the province.

It comes as Afghanistan again topped the list of the world's biggest narcotics producers with drug smugglers using a route through India more than in previous years, according to a US State Department report.

The annual report on global trends in the illegal narcotics trade confirmed that Afghanistan retains its position as the world's top opiate producer.

It also said that the drugs smuggled in 2012 through India from Afghanistan are increasing via Pakistan.

According to the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan increased 18 percent from 2011 to 2012, but drug production dropped 40 percent mainly because of the government's poppy eradication drive whereby government and security forces physically destroy farmers' poppy crops.

Most of Afghanistan's poppy cultivation happens in the south and west areas of Afghanistan, both for its suitable climate and in areas where security is more lax.

The Afghan government revenue for the first nine months of current fiscal year is Afs 11 billion ($US207m) more than the same period last year, the Ministry of Finance's General Revenues Department said Thursday.

According to the officials, the government received more than Afs 82 billion of revenue from customs and collecting taxes -- Afs 36 billion form customs and more than Afs 46 billion in taxes.

"Our revenues have been increasing. We are trying our best to collect taxes from all those who are eligible to pay tax. We have constantly put effort into improving the principles and simplifying the procedures," said Ahmad Shah Zamanzai, head of the ministry's General Revenues Department.

According to the ministry, it expects the revenues to increase more by the end of the current fiscal year (March 22 2012 - March 21 2013).

Collecting taxes and customs are regarded as the main source of revenue for the Afghan government, however in many cases a number of people have objected to the strict and bureaucratic system of collecting the taxes. But analysts said investors will lose interest if there is no standard system for tax and customs.

Afghanistan's National Coalition party Thursday accused President Hamid Karzai of demagoguery risking the good of the country with his thoughtless speeches against the US.

National Coalition leader Abdullah Abdullah said in the opening ceremony of Abdul Ali Mazari's Cultural and Social Foundation that Karzai is apathetic towards the good of the people and that he will take the government down.

"The leadership has lost its way. This leadership thinks only of its future and the future of its favorite small group," he said.

"In my view, the Taliban aims to collapse the government but damage of the government by this leadership is an equal disaster ," Abdullah said.

MP Abdul Zahir Qadir said the country's political leadership is asleep.

"The people were awake in the past, they are awake today, and in the future. The political leaders are sleeping. The leaders should be awake," he said at the ceremony.

Abdullah said a transparent election was essential to the country's future, but suggested that Karzai does not want to ensure this.

"We don't like that a person comes from abroad and replaces the president, this not people's wish. To end the problem it is important to hold a fair, transparent election but the president dosen't want the election," he said.

Karzai has in the past week made strong statements against the presence of the United States in Afghanistan, accusing them of secretly talking with the Taliban and wanting to benefit from Afghanistan's mines.

President Hamid Karzai's office released a statement Thursday explaining the president's controversial remarks earlier this week, after news of an email from the top Isaf commander in Afghanistan warning his soldiers to be on high alert broke.

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Afghanistan's National Coalition party Thursday accused President Hamid Karzai of demagoguery risking the good of the country with his thoughtless speeches against the US.

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A centre for religious studies has been opened in eastern Afghanistan in the hope that more Afghans will stay inside the country for such an education instead of going to Pakistan.

The senator who on Thursday opened the centre in eastern Nangarhar province said that Afghan children are going to Pakistan to get their religious education but they come back as insurgents and suicide bombers.

"With every day bringing suicide attacks and explosions, we decided to build a religious center here in order for our children and youth to get an Islamic education instead of going to neighboring countries where insurgency and military education was being taught" senator Lotfullah Baba said.

Lack of religious centers in the country obliges Afghan children to go Pakistan, he said.

Baba built the centre worth around Afs 15 million in the Hesar-e-Shahi district of the province.

"The centre already has 300 students... in the future we aim to attract 2000 students here ," Baba said.

Nangarhar shares a border with Pakistan which is why so many residents go there for a religious education.

Local officials have said that the residents wouldn't go to Pakistan if the government helped with more learning opportunities inside Afghanistan.

Abdul Latif Ibrahimi, former governor of Kunduz and brother of Parliament House speaker Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi, on Thursday called for a re-evaluation of government policy towards those who plan suicide attacks after the funeral of his father and two other brothers who were killed in Wednesday evening's suicide bombing in Kunduz.

"The government should have a clear policy -- it should change its policy. People do not know what we're doing [about attackers]," he said. "Every village knows who the enemies are."

MP Raouf Ibrahimi was not present at the funeral in northern Kunduz province because of the security threats, officials told TOLOnews.

The Ibrahimi's father, two brothers and a nephew were killed along with six others in a suicide bombing at a buzkashi match in the Imam Sahib district.

Kunduz governor Mohammad Anwar Jegdelik linked the attacks to foreign circles.

"The attackers come from abroad and it has global roots, so we will be always face these disasters if they are not completely destroyed," he said.

Kunduz provincial police chief Khalil Andarabi said that eight people have been detained in connection with the attacks.

Several officials have been killed in northern Kunduz and Takhar provinces by suicide attack during the last two years.

Kundoz former governor Eng Omar, the commander of north police Gen Daoud Daoud, former lawmaker Abdul Motalib Big, former Takhar police chief Shah Jahan and former Kunduz police chief Abdul Rahman Sayed Khili were all targeted in suicide attacks.

Afghanistan's Attorney General's Office will seek harsher penalties for those found guilty of aiding Kabul Bank's collapse, saying that the verdict of the special tribunal on the crisis was too soft.

Last week, the special court for Kabul Bank crisis sentenced 21 persons to imprisonment of up to five years and fines.

"Following our talks with responsible attorneys who have worked here, we concluded that the verdict issued by the special court for Kabul Bank is not in accordance with the law as described by attorney's side, our description of the crime, and the previously demanded punishments," said Sayed Alam Ishaqzai, head of the Attorney General's Afghan Anti-Corruption Prosecution.

"Therefore we will ask for an appeal and we will provide it to the responsible source of the Supreme Court," he added.

On the other hand, the head of the special court Shamsurrahman Shams has said that five years of imprisonment – the sentence handed down to former Kabul Bank chairman Shir Khan Farnood and CEO Khalilullah Firoozi – is the highest level of imprisonment according to the country's penal code.

"Besides penalising them, we fined them... the interest of the money too," Shams said.

"The punishment we handed them is for barratry, for which the highest punishment is five years. There is a medium imprisonment (for it) that is one to five years and we issued them five years. The judges do not have competency to verdict a punishment higher than what the law has set," he said.

"The court's verdict is the final verdict and no other source can change it, not even the president," he added.

However, the Attorney General said that in accordance with its framework and qualifications, it has the right to call for an appeal, and it expects more serious verdicts from the next courts.

Residents of Zabul province gathered on Thursday in the provincial capital Qalat and called for an end to poppy cultivation.

Most of the residents at the gathering pledged that they will not allow anyone to cultivate poppy in Zabul Province, and if anyone does they will be handed over to the law.

In exchange, the residents called on the government to provide them with work opportunities, particularly for the young people in the province.

"Drugs are all banned in Islam and what we are cultivating we should ban that," one the residents said.

The Zabul provincial governor Mohammad Ashraf Nasiri praised the residents' commitment and said that the government will do all it can to solve their problems.

"Last year a number of students in Zabul was 60,000, but this year we will try to raise this number to 100,000 students," Nasiri said.

The Zabul residents warned that if employment opportunities for Zabul residents do not improve, problems will increase in the province.

It comes as Afghanistan again topped the list of the world's biggest narcotics producers with drug smugglers using a route through India more than in previous years, according to a US State Department report.

The annual report on global trends in the illegal narcotics trade confirmed that Afghanistan retains its position as the world's top opiate producer.

It also said that the drugs smuggled in 2012 through India from Afghanistan are increasing via Pakistan.

According to the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan increased 18 percent from 2011 to 2012, but drug production dropped 40 percent mainly because of the government's poppy eradication drive whereby government and security forces physically destroy farmers' poppy crops.

Most of Afghanistan's poppy cultivation happens in the south and west areas of Afghanistan, both for its suitable climate and in areas where security is more lax.

The Afghan government revenue for the first nine months of current fiscal year is Afs 11 billion ($US207m) more than the same period last year, the Ministry of Finance's General Revenues Department said Thursday.

According to the officials, the government received more than Afs 82 billion of revenue from customs and collecting taxes -- Afs 36 billion form customs and more than Afs 46 billion in taxes.

"Our revenues have been increasing. We are trying our best to collect taxes from all those who are eligible to pay tax. We have constantly put effort into improving the principles and simplifying the procedures," said Ahmad Shah Zamanzai, head of the ministry's General Revenues Department.

According to the ministry, it expects the revenues to increase more by the end of the current fiscal year (March 22 2012 - March 21 2013).

Collecting taxes and customs are regarded as the main source of revenue for the Afghan government, however in many cases a number of people have objected to the strict and bureaucratic system of collecting the taxes. But analysts said investors will lose interest if there is no standard system for tax and customs.

Afghanistan's National Coalition party Thursday accused President Hamid Karzai of demagoguery risking the good of the country with his thoughtless speeches against the US.

National Coalition leader Abdullah Abdullah said in the opening ceremony of Abdul Ali Mazari's Cultural and Social Foundation that Karzai is apathetic towards the good of the people and that he will take the government down.

"The leadership has lost its way. This leadership thinks only of its future and the future of its favorite small group," he said.

"In my view, the Taliban aims to collapse the government but damage of the government by this leadership is an equal disaster ," Abdullah said.

MP Abdul Zahir Qadir said the country's political leadership is asleep.

"The people were awake in the past, they are awake today, and in the future. The political leaders are sleeping. The leaders should be awake," he said at the ceremony.

Abdullah said a transparent election was essential to the country's future, but suggested that Karzai does not want to ensure this.

"We don't like that a person comes from abroad and replaces the president, this not people's wish. To end the problem it is important to hold a fair, transparent election but the president dosen't want the election," he said.

Karzai has in the past week made strong statements against the presence of the United States in Afghanistan, accusing them of secretly talking with the Taliban and wanting to benefit from Afghanistan's mines.

President Hamid Karzai's office released a statement Thursday explaining the president's controversial remarks earlier this week, after news of an email from the top Isaf commander in Afghanistan warning his soldiers to be on high alert broke.

"My recent comments were meant to help reform, not destroy the relationship," the presidential statement says, quoting Karzai telling an audience at the Presidential Palace Thursday. "We want good relations and friendship with America, but the relationship must be between two independent nations."

Following Karzai's harsh comments over the week on the US presence in Afghanistan, Gen Joseph Dunford emailed his battlefield commanders warning them of a higher risk of insider attacks.

The email, which was leaked to the New York Times, was confirmed by US officials as genuine.

"[Karzai's] remarks could be a catalyst for some to lash out against our forces - he may also issue orders that put our forces at risk ," Dunford said in the email.

Afghan leaders have lashed out at Karzai as well, calling him irresponsible, such as Dr. Abdullah Abdullah – one of the country's political opposition leaders.

"This much distrust between Afghanistan and its international partners including at the military level between the international forces and Afghanistan's national army and national police could lead to another security threat for the people of Afghanistan," Dr. Abdullah said.

"There has been an agreement that a part of these (international) forces would stay to train the National Army of Afghanistan that is still in need of such a thing, however [with Karzai's comments], not only may this become another challenge but also impossible," he added.

A number of political and military analysts weighed in with their views that Karzai's words could lead to an irreparable distrust between Afghan and international forces.

"In the letter sent from the General Commander of international forces to (his) troops, it is said that there has been a mistrust made from Afghan government side," said military expert Gen Amrullah Aman.

"Only the Afghan nation will be harmed if this trust between the Afghan government and international forces and the international community is lost," he added.

Military analyst Miagol Waseeq said: "Mr. President's statement would confuse the minds of our soldiers and those who have been to defend such values; they would be stimulated (to think) that maybe Americans are our enemies and therefore we should act this way ... unfortunately there has been green-on-blue attacks."

Stating his concern, Dunford said that the relationship between the United States and Afghanistan has come to a low and sensitive point.