WASHINGTON, Dec 8: An increase in guerillas attacks and the deaths of nine children in a US air raid over the weekend may endanger efforts to normalize Afghanistan, US newspapers reported on Monday.

One such report — in the Washington Post — said the attacks and the US bombing have — cast a jittery pall — over preparations for the loya jirga scheduled to begin on Wednesday.

Other reports quoted UN envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, cautioning the United States that the death of nine children in the US air assault on Saturday “adds to a sense of insecurity and fear in the country.”

Mr Brahimi reminded the United States that there have been “similar incidents” in the past as well hoped that “lessons will be learned from this episode so it will not be repeated.”

Several reports quoted Afghan officials as saying that continued violence and the US air raid may cause the authorities to delay the loya jirga by several days.

An increase in violence, the reports said, may also overshadow two milestones in Afghanistan’s reconstruction and normalization: the completion of the 310-mile highway from Kabul to Kandahar, and the launching on Sunday of a programme to disarm and demobilize thousands of militia fighters in Kabul province.

Since Thursday, a blast in Kandahar wounded about 20 people, two Indian highway workers have been kidnapped and gunmen ambushed a crew of census takers in Farah province, killing one.

Giving details of the US air raid over the village of Atala in Ghazni, the reports said US forces were targeting a Taliban leader Mullah Wazir but instead they ended up killing nine children.

US authorities, the report said, have claimed killing Mullah Wazir but the villagers say that he had left Atala two weeks before the attack.

“The US raid immediately evoked comparisons to a US gunship attack in July 2002 that killed 42 villagers in Uruzgan province, as well as an air raid last month that killed several members of a religious leader’s family during a US-led anti-terrorist operation in Nurestan province,” the Post observed.

Other reports pointed out that Afghan President Hamid Karzai described the raid as “shocking” and said it had “upset” him, but both he and other Afghan officials refrained from serious criticism of the US military operation. Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said the government had “asked for an explanation” from US military authorities — who pledged to investigate — and had sent a team to probe the site.

Haji Assadullah, the governor of Ghazni province, said: “It has not been ascertained if Mullah Wazir was killed or not,” but the house targeted in the air attack belonged to him.

The Washington Post said that revived Taliban forces have staged a series of increasingly daring and frequent attacks across southeastern Afghanistan in recent months, apparently attempting to sabotage the government’s efforts at political and economic reconstruction and to undermine its relations with other nations. Numerous foreign aid projects have been suspended as a result of the violence.