US tactics under fire

The US-led campaign is facing accusations in Afghanistan and at home of losing momentum and running into the ground. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said "this is not a quagmire", but has admitted that the US may embark on much bigger operations with ground troops.

On the Northern Alliance front in Afghanistan there is a growing feeling among the fighters and their international advisers that the US campaign has lost focus and has moved from destroying terrorists to the whole range of peacekeeping and democratic reform.

A senior British defence source said: "There's a slight feeling that the Americans have taken their eyes off the ball. They are talking about nation building, and about civil society. They're beginning to get themselves into a bit of a pickle."

The growing criticism of US tactics, coming from within the US as well as from the Northern Alliance, has arisen amid more reports of civilian casualties from the air raids in Afghanistan. At least 13 civilians died in Kabul over the weekend, including a father and his seven children.

Local allies in Afghanistan have been dismayed at two apparent failures by American forces - the raids round Kandahar ten days ago and the failure to rescue Abdul Haq, one of the biggest Afghan supporters of the US, who was captured and killed in Afghanistan on Friday. The Pentagon has admitted that US helicopters tried to mount a rescue mission for Haq, whose mission to raise support against for the fight against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan was known to the CIA.

According to military sources in the US, at least one of the two Ranger raids ten days ago ended in failure. Despite the video footage released by the Pentagon to show Rangers parachuting into the desert south of Kandahar and then apparently searching an arms cache, one group of Rangers spent only a very few minutes on the ground.

"The helicopters landed them at the wrong place," according to one source. "There was a quite a heavy Taliban presence - and the Taliban managed to regroup in the dark, and mount a counterattack, which shook the Americans. So they took off in a hurry."

In Britain and the US politicians have been repeating the message that the campaign will be long and difficult. "This is going to be a long process, so this is not one battle," the White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said on American television. "This will be a series of efforts to make sure that Afghanistan is not a place where terrorists can be harboured." Tony Blair has called for a display of "moral fibre and purpose".

The Taliban's spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar said he too is gearing up for a long fight. "We have not started the real battle against the United States," he told the Algerian paper El Youm.

In British defence circles there is growing confusion about the role of British ground forces in the next phase of operations in Afghanistan. At the beginning of last week, defence sources widely predicted that up to 1,000 British troops would soon be involved, the men of one of the two Royal Marine Commandos (about 600 men) involved in exercises in Oman, plus special forces from the SAS and SBS. An announcement was expected last Wednesday, but this was then put off until last Friday.

When it came it was for about a quarter of the force previously forecast by sources in the MoD itself - a company of 200 Royal Marines from 40 Commando, some helicopters aboard HMS Illustrious and unspecified special forces. British military planners are reluctant to commit more forces until the Americans disclose fully their operational plans. "We are just not in the loop on some things, despite having planners with the US at Tampa, and intelligence from the ground is still very poor," said a defence source last week.

Brigadier Roger Lane, Commander of 3 Commando Brigade from which the marines will deploy aboard HMS Illustrious and HMS Fearless from this week, said his men would still need a lot of preparation before being able to operate in Afghanistan. "We don't need to be hasty, we need to be right," he said.