LONDON, Feb 1: The head of Britain’s armed forces has criticised the government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, for failing to establish proper control over the country.

A Sunday Times report said Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, chief of defence staff, had expressed serious concerns about the ‘weakness’ of the Karzai government and the difficulties this was causing the mission of British troops.

Amid reports that US President Barack Obama sees Mr Karzai as an impediment to success in Afghanistan, Air Marshal Stirrup, interviewed in Sunday Times News Review, says all the allies are worried about the “lack of capacity” of his government.

While emphasising that it is up to the Afghan people to choose their president, which they will do in elections in August, he admits: “The weakness of governance in Afghanistan worries me considerably.

“This mission is, essentially, all about governance and there is no doubt that there is a lack of capacity within Afghanistan.”

The objective is “not to turn Afghanistan into some sort of Asian Switzerland,” Marshal Stirrup says, but the country’s problems “can only be dealt with, in the long term, through politics”.

Mr Karzai, sometimes known by British troops as the lord mayor of Kabul because he has so little power outside the capital, has had a difficult relationship with the British.

Marshal Stirrup confirms that “a substantial number” of American troops will be arriving soon in Helmand. Washington is expected to put more than 6,000 troops into the province, taking control of its southern half where British success has been limited.

— Special Correspondent