Government advisers call for Afghan withdrawal

Military experts close to the Government today published a blueprint for withdrawing British troops from Afghanistan.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies suggested that Nato forces should in future focus only on international terror threats from the war-ravaged country.

The director, Dr John Chipman, stressed that Britain should opt for a more minimalist policy of "containment and deterrents".

He said the main point for being there ­— to stop the country being a base for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda — had been achieved.

Under the institute's four-point plan, Afghanistan "would become a loosely federated state" in which "power would go to the provinces and regions", who would rule almost independently.

Whitehall insiders confirmed that government defence chiefs have been thinking along these lines as exasperation has grown with Afghan president Hamid Karzai's administration which has been plagued by corruption claims.

But defence sources also played down the likelihood of any dramatic change in tactics in Afghanistan soon.

Some military chiefs have suggested that David Cameron could seek to bring forward the withdrawal of British combat troops from 2015 to 2012, and that he wants a major cut in UK forces by next year. But a Whitehall source cast doubt on the feasibility of even the 2015 deadline.

The institute plan raises prospects of a partitioned Afghanistan, which could become one of the world's biggest drug states.