The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) would open its offices in Afghanistan's restive provinces to push the process of stability and reconstruction there, the world body's special envoy to the post- Taliban nation said Monday.

"We will be expanding our presence in the south and southeast of Afghanistan. They will be opening two more UNAMA offices, one in Qalat, the provincial capital of Zabul, and the other one in Assadabad in Kunar province," Tom Koenige told reporters here.

He made this announcement amid increasing Taliban-linked insurgency in the south where more than 1,000 militants, according to the military officials have been killed since early June.

The ongoing spiraling wave of violence has forced many aid agencies to close down their offices or reduce their activities in the region where hundreds of militants are said to have hidden.

"We think that our presence can contribute to the stabilization of the country," the UN top diplomat to Afghanistan stressed.

"This is in support of the local population and the support of those who want to deliver development to this population," he added.

However, he did not say when the new offices will be opened.

Currently the UNAMA's regional office is in Kandahar, the former stronghold of Taliban, from where the UN monitors the situation in the southern region.

Koenige said the UNAMA would also open its offices in the troubled Helmand and Uruzgan provinces whenever the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)

can guarantee the security there.

The world body's envoy, who presented his report about the situation in Afghanistan to the UN Security Council last week, said that some of these offices would be opened at the end of the year and some others in the spring next year.

NATO, which took over the command from the U.S-led coalition forces in the southern region on July 31, has been facing a tough time as nine of its soldiers have been killed and 14 others sustained injuries since assuming authority to pound militants.

Source: Xinhua