UK reports Taliban growing stronger

By Luke Baker

LONDON (Reuters) - NATO countries are not giving the international force securing Afghanistan enough support and there are worrying signs that the Taliban are growing stronger, a detailed study by parliament has found.

The report, by the House of Commons Defence Committee, highlighted a series of concerns, from a lack of training for Afghan police and armed forces to an unclear policy on eradicating the country's vast opium poppy fields.

But the chief preoccupation was a lack of support from other NATO countries to provide more troops to the 36,000-strong ISAF mission and evidence that violence, including Iraq-style suicide bombings, was growing as Taliban and al Qaeda-linked insurgents expand their sphere of influence from the south.

Britain, which leads NATO forces in the restive Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, is one of the largest contributors to the mission, with 7,100 troops.

"We remain deeply concerned that the reluctance of some NATO countries to provide troops for the ISAF mission in Afghanistan is undermining NATO's credibility and also ISAF operations," the bi-partisan committee concluded in its 65-page report.

A NATO spokesman said the alliance's secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, did not agree with the panel that other NATO allies were not pulling their weight.

"It's not a view the secretary-general shares. The secretary-general recognises that there are 37 countries in Afghanistan under ISAF each of them doing a very important job," spokesman James Appathurai told a news briefing in Brussels.

German, Italian, Spanish, French and Turkish troops were all playing critical roles in other areas that were far from safe.