From the BBC …..

'We haven't got enough troops there to dominate the territory & we have a government in Kabul whose authority barely runs inside the capital, let alone outside it.’

"We have no long-term strategy and unlike the Russians we have been there for eight years without even beginning to plan to leave," he adds.

"The mission now is quite different from the Soviet war," says Gregory Feifer, who has just written a book on the Soviet experience in Afghanistan.

"Crucially even seven years into the occupation, there’s a critical mass of Afghans who still want the mission to succeed... there is still a small window of opportunity left."