NEW YORK, Sept 3: The rising incidence of explosions, bombings and other attacks in recent weeks, and reports that one troublesome warlord may be reassembling his troops, heightened apprehensions that Afghanistan may be entering a new phase of conflict, the New York Times said.

Some senior Afghan officials warn that the 16,000 mainly Western troops, including 7,800 American soldiers and a 4,800- member international security force in Kabul, could confront an open-ended challenge that would destabilize this country for years, the New York Times said.

According to The Times report Afghan officials say “that the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda networks that were driven from power in November may be in the early stages of coalescing with other armed opposition groups.

“These groups, the officials say, include disaffected regional warlords who feel excluded from the new power arrangements in Kabul and fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.”

The Karzai government has been pressing American military commanders to widen their focus beyond the Taliban and Al Qaeda to include threats from groups like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s.

The paper said that last week, Abdullah Abdullah, the Afghan foreign minister, appealed to senior Pakistani officials in Islamabad to halt what the Afghans contend has been a new pattern of support for Hekmatyar from Pakistan’s military intelligence organization, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

“Afghan officials said the Pakistani officials listened to the appeals without confirming or denying that there had been fresh contacts with Hekmatyar”, the paper said.

After years of exile in Iran, Hekmatyar crossed back secretly into Afghanistan earlier this year, and immediately set about trying to resurrect his old guerrilla network, the officials say. As an ethnic Pakhtoon, he has ties to the predominantly Pakhtoon Taliban.

Afghan officials say he has been moving among Pakhtoon tribesmen in eastern Afghanistan making the case that the Kabul government, dominated by ethnic Tajiks and sustained by American military power, is a ripe target for a new war, the paper said.

So far, the attacks in Kabul and southern cities, including Kandahar, and on American military outposts have been sporadic, limited in impact and often amateurishly bungled.

In almost every case, the perpetrators have escaped, leaving few traces. But taken together, the attacks have sent an unmistakable signal that there are pockets of determined resistance to the post-Taliban order and that rooting them out is not going to be easy, the New York Times report said.