we can only hope that our occupation of Iraq goes as well as the one in Afghanistan.

News Posters apparently endorsed by one of America's most wanted fugitives, Mullah Mohammed Omar, have appeared in Afghanistan calling for renewed holy war, providing a further sign that the conflict is worsening.

Signed by 600 Islamic clerics, the posters appeared amid a flurry of attacks which saw guerrillas fire rockets at a United Nations base in Kabul and at US military installations.

The deteriorating situation has been underscored in the past few days by the killing of two American special forces soldiers in an ambush in southern Afghanistan and the death of a Red Cross worker, shot through the head while on a mission to install water wells.

The posters are circulating in eastern Afghanistan.