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NICOSIA - The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in July/August is to increase its contingent of 9,700 troops in Afghanistan to 16,000, assume unified command and move into the southern Pashtun heartland of the Taliban, where remnants of al-Qaeda are also active. But just as this decisive stage in the pacification of Afghanistan is about to go ahead, the Hamid Karzai government is contemplating the rearming of private militias in the south to back up overstretched police and security forces.

A Kabul-armed militia force would reverse a painstaking disarmament process in Afghanistan, which has sidelined some warlords, even in an environment of booming heroin revenues. It would underscore the powerlessness of the Kabul government, and make it look as though the foreigners had formed an alliance with the drugs traffickers - "a gift to the Taliban and al-Qaeda", as an editorial published on June 12 by the Financial Times put it.

The FT said: "Anyone who needs reminding where alliances with militias lead need look no further than Iraq today, or Lebanon before it, or Sudan or Somalia. History is littered with the debris of dynasties that outsourced their armed forces. Afghans will need no such reminders: they had only just begun to emerge from the nightmare of warlordism".

In comparison to the debacle in Iraq, Afghanistan was something the world was encouraged to believe a country re-emerged from a widely supported international intervention which perceptibly improved the lives of ordinary Afghans. That comfortable image has begun to crumble.

First came the paroxysm of violence three weeks ago after a US army truck lost control and careered into a rush-hour traffic jam in Kabul. The spark which lit that fire was obvious. Exhausted as they were after 25 years of war, Afghans had been disillusioned with the peace and angered by the failure of intervention and foreign aid to bring prosperity and security.

The internationally backed constitutional process which has underpinned an elected government was quite an achievement. But it must be measured against miserable living standards, rampant corruption and the lawlessness of a resurgent Taliban and narco-warlords, with remnants of al-Qaeda having returned to Afghanistan as well. Police commanders are engaged in drug trafficking.

In May more than 400 people died in fighting in Afghanistan, as US forces courted popular enmity by increasing recourse to air strikes which were killing large numbers of civilians. Until now, coalition forces have been under separate command, pursuing different objectives - the 23,000-strong US contingent harrying the Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants, while 9,700 NATO forces try to secure the country.

NATO needs more troops to establish a secure environment for reconstruction. "If so", the FT said, "the mission should be expanded until Afghan national forces can be built up. Resorting to militias would turn the clock back and would be a repudiation of what little has been achieved in putting Afghanistan back together".

Occasioned by the tracking down and killing of Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi near the northern Iraqi city of Ba'quba, the Bush cabinet and its Iraqi counterpart on June 13 adopted a new strategy for the US and Iraqi forces in that country (see the survey of Iraq in this week's rim6-IraqZarqawiJun19-06).

As violence in the country's four southern provinces rises to its worst level since fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, armed village and tribal groups would be recruited to back up the increasingly over-stretched police force and fledgling national army. The FT on June 10 quoted Jawed Ludin, chief of staff in the Karzai government, as saying: "The government wants to take measures to strengthen the security situation in the south. It is not so much that the terrorists are strong, but that we are weak".

However, experts say the tribal groups to be armed are likely to be militias commanded by warlords, which would create alternative power bases and weaken an already fragile state. The FT quoted a "western diplomat" as saying: "If this happens it is the beginning of the end for southern Afghanistan and has far-reaching implications for the north and west". The FT quoted a "senior western security official" as saying: "This is a vote of no confidence in everything that has been done so far to reform the police and army".

Ludin said young tribesmen could be used to back up police who had been left in the fight against the Taliban without adequate arms or equipment, adding: "This is not militias. It is strengthening the police and making sure the police have a strong community presence".