KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai, facing massive Western pressure to clamp down on corruption, is to unveil at least part of his long-awaited cabinet to parliament for approval on Tuesday, an official said.

Re-elected for a second term following an August election scarred by fraud, Karzai is under huge domestic and foreign pressure to form a transparent government to help end a Taliban insurgency.

"The president intends to introduce a number of his new cabinet members to parliament tomorrow, Tuesday," Siamak Herawi, a Karzai spokesman, told AFP.

Asked how many of the new cabinet members would be submitted, the spokesman added: "Most likely a good number of them, most of them."

Parliament must pass a vote of confidence in the cabinet before the new Afghan government can start work.

Lawmakers had been scheduled to break for winter recess on Sunday, but the house has already announced that it will extend its session.

Washington has warned Karzai to fight corruption or see his cabinet bypassed in favour of lower level officials to provide services to Afghans as part of a sweeping new war strategy that includes more than 30,000 extra troops.

Karzai faces a challenge in satisfying those who supported him in the elections with government jobs and keeping his Western allies happy.

He has already inaugurated Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a former anti-Soviet resistance leader and an anti-Taliban commander, as his first vice president.

Human Rights Watch has implicated Fahim in abuses including murder during the post-Soviet civil war, and diplomats allege his abuses continue today with assassinations, weapons smuggling and narcotics activities.

But in an interview with CNN broadcast late Sunday, Karzai reiterated his inauguration pledge to root out official corruption, while insisting that complaints from Western powers about government graft were "overplayed".

He said his new government "will address all of those questions that are in Afghanistan that are our problems. It is our responsibility, and we must do it".

Karzai said he plans to make his government more streamlined and transparent, including "improving the rule of law, further improving the judiciary" and reducing red tape.

His goal, he said, is "to make administration simpler, to make it transparent so people can have delivery of services sooner and cheaper, and without the possibility of corruption".

"The issue of corruption has been politically overplayed by some of our partners in the international community," the Afghan leader added.

"I also hope that our partners will also address problems that they bring to us that cause corruption, that cause bad governance, that cause parallel governance, that cause insecurity."

NATO countries and allies, led by the United States, maintain 113,000 troops -- set to rise to 150,000 over 18 months -- in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban insurgency and support efforts to inculcate democracy.

Spiralling insecurity, drugs trade, corruption, crime and alliances with warlords accused of rights abuses have triggered mounting criticism of Karzai's administration, dismaying Western capitals and the Afghan public.