Afghan Warlord: We Don't Need More American Troops...We Just Need the Italians to Fight

And don't get him started on the Macedonians.

ONE of Afghanistan's most powerful warlords has urged America not to send more troops, insisting there are enough to beat the Taleban already – if the rest of Nato simply pulled its weight.

Ismail Khan, the self-styled Emir of western Afghanistan, and three-decade veteran of fighting the Taleban and the Russians, was particularly scathing about the Italian forces, in his hometown of Herat.

He said: "Most of the time they sit in their bases. We don't need more Americans. The troops that we have already – the Italians, if they were more active, if they fought, then the situation would get better."

His remarks highlight US concerns over a two-tier alliance, in which American and British troops do all the "heavy lifting", while the other nations pay lip service to the coalition.

US troops already joke that Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) stands for "I Saw Americans Fighting".

In Badghis, in north-west Afghanistan, nine Afghan troops and five policemen were killed and 11 others captured when their convoy was ambushed by the Taleban last year. Battalion commander General Farooq Naimie blamed his Italian mentors for refusing to accompany his men in the most dangerous part of the mission.

He said: "Before we left we agreed the Italians would go with us. Three days later they said they wouldn't come with us but they would provide air support. When the ambush started the Italian base was around 6km away but they didn't come out.

"We radioed the base to ask for help, but didn't see any results. They helicopters were above us but they didn't do anything."

The ambush sparked embarrassing questions in Kabul after it emerged the insurgent commander behind it, Ghulam Dastagir, had been released from prison less than three weeks earlier on the express intervention of president Hamid Karzai.

In September the Italians were accused of paying Taleban commanders tens of thousands of dollars, to keep the area east of Kabul quiet. Rome denied the allegations.