The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Kabul

With Hamid Karzai confirmed as Afghan president for another five years, the pressure is on Barack Obama to declare his plans for winning a war which commanders say is in danger of being lost.

Top aides have said it would be "irresponsible" for the US president to take a decision on committing tens of thousands more troops to battle the Taliban before it was clear who would be in power in Kabul. Stanley McChrystal, the US general with overall command of the more than 100,000 troops already in Afghanistan, wants up to 40,000 reinforcements-a line strongly backed by his senior lieutenants.

But with US and European enthusiasm for the war waning, experts say Obama may opt for a more limited boost in troop numbers. They warn that other options are fraught with difficulties.

In a speech last month, McChrystal warned: "The situation is serious andt neither success nor failure can be taken for granted."

The message was even starker from a commander in the NATO-led security force which provides some two-thirds of the West's troops in Afghanistan.

"The clock is ticking in Afghanistan," the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We are losing the support of the population day by day and from a military point of view I am not able to make further progress" with current troop levels.

"If we want to join with the population, live with them in the villages, we have to have more soldiers."

In a new report, the International Crisis Group (ICG), a think tank, warned the Taliban were at their strongest since being overthrown in 2001.

"The insurgents believe that they now have the upper hand," it said.

Many military officers feel a lack of numbers prevents them from keeping rural areas onside.

But other powerful voices such as John Kerry, who heads the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, argue that combating terrorism does not require the coalition to "defeat the Taliban in every corner of the country".