Increasing security incidents and attacks on government and foreign troops over the past few days have shown militants' resolve to undermine Afghanistan's stability and defame the government, local observers believe.

"Taliban, like drug mafia, is desperate to undermine security and degrade the government's credibility both at home and abroad," Qasim Akhgar, a famous local political analyst told Xinhua on Monday.

One top pro-government cleric was killed on Sunday by militants as the former Taliban regime vowed to sabotage the ongoing peace process and derail the coming September 18 parliamentary polls.

Taliban spokesman Mawlawi Abdul Latif Hakimi has claimed responsibility for the slaying of cleric Mawlavi Abdullah Fayaz, saying the Mujahideen or holy warriors of Islamic Emirate (ousted Taliban regime) punished Fayaz for his support to Americans.

The incident was followed by a rocket attack on the headquarters of the 8,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the wee hours of Monday, leaving no casualties.

A roadside bike bomb went off soon after the rocket attack also on Monday in a crowded road used by ISAF and US army vehicles, injuring eight civilians.

Earlier on May 16, four armed men, believed to have links with the militants abducted Italian relief worker Clementina Cantoni from the capital city and the Afghan government has yet to secure her release.

Attacks on foreign and government targets have been on the rise since mid-May when Afghan President Hamid Karzai convened a conference of Afghan celebrities and elders to solicit their opinions with regard to the question of establishing permanent US military bases in Afghanistan.

The delegates, with mixed reactions on the subject, have referred the controversial issue to the coming parliament to be formed in late September, while President Karzai during his recent visit to the United States advocated US long stay in his war- shattered Central Asian state.

A joint declaration signed by Afghan and US presidents and released on May 23 in the White House facilitates America's long- term military presence in Afghanistan.

Taliban's elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar termed the declaration as a sellout of Afghanistan and denounced it while Karzai described it as a big achievement of his tour to the United States.

In a statement issued from a unknown location late last week, Omar strongly condemned the joint declaration and called for intensifying Jihad or holy war till the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

"Mullah Omar's threat is a clear indication of his design to subvert peace and stability in the country including the derailing of the upcoming parliamentary polls," local journalist Bashir Ahmad Ghazali noted.

In addition to Taliban, a dissident warlord and former Prime Minister Gulbudin Hekmatyar has also criticized the Karzai-Bush joint declaration on Afghan-US strategic partnership as a ploy to prolong US stay in the region.

In a communiqu issued to local press, Hekmatyar said that the United States would not leave Afghanistan on its own unless being pushed out by resistance.

As a wanted man by Washington, Hekmatyar has been leading hit- and-run attacks against Afghan and US troops over the past three years, mostly in the mountainous regions of eastern and southeastern Afghanistan.

The remnants of Taliban, whose regime was ousted by US invasion in late 2001, have been fighting to expel some 26,000 foreign troops from Afghanistan where the skirmishes have left more than 100 dead over the past two months.

Source: Xinhua