WASHINGTON, Sept 5: Afghanistan is “falling back into the hands of the Taliban” and US-backed troops are fighting in a lawless land, says a report released on Tuesday.

The Taliban movement is becoming increasingly popular due to the West’s failure to tackle Afghans’ ‘extreme poverty,’ according to the study for the Senlis Council think-tank.

All of southern Afghanistan, where British troops are concentrated in the lawless Helmand province, is now under “limited or no central government control”, the report claims. The Senlis Council blames military priorities and “flawed” poppy eradication policies for Afghanistan’s plight.

The report states: “The Taliban are back and have strong psychological and de facto military control over half of Afghanistan. The international community has failed to achieve stability and security in Afghanistan.”

The report points out that poppy is the only cash crop available to 90 per cent of the rural population.

Another report, also published on Tuesday, expresses concerns over Pakistan’s decision to make truce with extremists along the Afghan border. The report argues that it would free militants and Al Qaeda fighters to join Taliban insurgents battling US-led troops and government forces in Afghanistan.

The report notes that the fighting in Afghanistan is the bloodiest since US forces drove the Taliban from power after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks.

The report acknowledges that Pakistan deployed 80,000 troops in mid-2003 to seal the Afghan-Pakistani border, subdue the separatists and track down Osama bin Laden and his followers.

“But the military’s heavy artillery and helicopter gunships failed to conquer the separatists and establish government control over the border region.”

Col Tom Collins, a spokesman for the 23,000-strong American force responsible for south-eastern areas of Afghanistan, is quoted as saying: “There has been a definite increase in Taliban activity in Ghazni province.”

Zia Mojadedi, a senior national-security aide to the Afghan president, criticised the Bush administration for accepting Pakistani assurances that the new truces include rebel promises not to join the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

Agencies Add: The council said children were dying from hunger in makeshift camps set up in the south, many of them near military bases used by NATO forces for security and reconstruction operations.

The executive director of the Senlis Council, Emmanuel Reinert, said there were 10 to 15 such camps in the region, each occupied by 10,000 people.

Mr Reinert’s organisationbased its research on testimony from Afghans and had videos showing malnourished children to back up its claims.

The report also argues against the international community’s strategy to eliminate opium production in Afghanistan through the cultivation of poppies.