From Telegraph.co.uk:

Mr Karzai also said there would be no progress in the nine-year-long campaign while insurgents still had safe havens in Pakistan.

His comments have intensified the debate about whether the July 2011 milestone outlined by Washington was feasible or had encouraged rebels to believe they could hold on until foreign troops start leaving.

The president told a visiting delegation of American congressmen that the date had boosted Taliban morale “to some extent”.

He added: “The lack of progress in the war on terror has two factors: one the terror sanctuaries have not been addressed and second because civilians were killed during this war.”

Earlier this week, Marine General James Conway said intelligence reports suggested insurgents were drawing “sustenance” from Mr Obama’s withdrawal deadline.

Washington has emphasised the deadline will only mark the start of a withdrawal process and depends on progress stabilising the country.

But several senior military commanders have this week suggested progress will not be fast.

Mr Karzai and his international sponsors declared at July’s Kabul conference that Afghan forces would take over front line fighting duties by 2014.

Mr Karzai has repeatedly voiced frustration that Nato is not doing enough to pursue the Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan, though his fraught relations with Islamabad have thawed in the past year.

Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Afghanistan’s national security adviser, this week said America’s attempts in Afghanistan were being betrayed by Islamabad’s support for terrorists.

The fight against insurgents had been “compounded by another strategic failure: the mistaken embrace of ‘strategic partners’ who have, in fact, been nurturing terrorism,” he said.

“While we are losing dozens of men and women to terrorist attacks every day, the terrorists’ main mentor continues to receive billions of dollars in aid and assistance. How is this fundamental contradiction justified?” he added.

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