US Mulls Afghan Tribes to Fight Taliban

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who arrived in Kabul Monday on a surprise visit, will discuss the new initiative with NATO and Afghan officials, said Pentagon officials.

Gates said his trip is aimed primarily to evaluate international efforts against an increasing Taliban attacks.

The US recruitment program would begin with a British pilot project in Helmand province, according to senior US defense officials.

Realizing the ineptitude of the military force against Taliban, the UK military started in October courting locals and "moderate" Taliban leaders to split the group.

The new scheme is similar to a US military drive in Iraq that has recruited thousands of Sunni locals to fight Al-Qaeda.

The increasingly powerful Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until ousted by the US in 2001, has been recently a thorn in the side of the foreign troops.

The group has been engaged in protracted guerrilla warfare against the US-led forces and the West-backed Kabul government.

The Senlis Council, an international policy think tank, said in a report released last month that the Taliban has established a permanent presence in more than half of Afghanistan.

Disapproving

Gates, who was last in Afghanistan in June, comes with his new plans while a new nationwide poll showed that Afghan disapproval of the US military's performance has risen in the past year.

The poll, conducted for ABC News, BBC and Germany's ARD network, found that 42 percent of Afghans rated US efforts in their country positively, down from 68 percent in 2005 and 57 percent last year.

Face-to-face interviews of 1,377 Afghans in each of the country's 34 provinces showed support for Taliban is rising, especially in the troubled southwest.

Forty-two percent said Taliban has gained strength in the past year.

Twenty-three percent in the southwest said people in their area support the Taliban, triple last year's level.

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