WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- Most Afghans view the Taliban as the single greatest threat to national security, and that sentiment is rising, a survey by the Asia Foundation found.
A peace and reconciliation effort in Afghanistan was suspended after Kabul blamed a Taliban suicide bomber for the September assassination of reconciliation czar and former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani.
A survey of more than 6,300 Afghans from across the country found most respondents said they felt the Taliban posed the greatest threat to security in their country.
"The proportion of respondents who specifically cite the presence of the Taliban as the reason for this has been rising steadily since 2008 to its highest recorded figure in 2011," the Asia Foundation said in its 262-page survey published Wednesday.
The survey found a "significant increase" in the number of respondents who said security was getting worse in the country. Most of the respondents also said they felt less secure in expressing their political opinions.
Roughly half of the respondents, however, said the pace of reconstruction in the country gave them cause for optimism.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai during the loya jirga meeting in Kabul said his country was fighting to stand alone as an independent nation after decade's worth of conflict.
"We want our national sovereignty and we want it today," he was quoted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as saying.
International forces are to start handing over security responsibility to Kabul in 2014.
The Asia Foundation survey of 6,348 Afghan adults was carried out between July 2 and Aug. 1. It had a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
