Poll shows Afghans growing unhappy with U.S. military

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghan disapproval of the U.S. military's performance in their country has risen in the past year because of rising violence and uneven progress in economic development, a national poll showed on Monday.

The poll conducted for three Western television networks also found that support for Taliban fighters is rising, especially in the troubled southwest of Afghanistan, six years after the hard-line Islamist movement was ousted by U.S.-led coalition forces.

Face-to-face interviews of 1,377 Afghans in each of the country's 34 provinces found that 42 percent of Afghans rated U.S. efforts in Afghanistan positively, down from 68 percent in 2005 and 57 percent last year.

The United States currently has 26,000 troops in Afghanistan. About half are involved in NATO operations and half on other missions.

Whereas two thirds of Afghans were confident last year that NATO forces could provide them with security, only just over half say that now, according to the poll conducted for ABC News of the United States, Britain's BBC and Germany's ARD network.

Forty two percent say the Taliban has gained strength in the past year. Driven by what the polling agency said was anger at civilian casualties, 45 percent of respondents in southwestern Afghanistan supported the presence of NATO forces -- a sharp drop from the 83 percent who did so in 2006.

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

Craig Charney, whose firm Charney Research conducted the poll, said that Afghans' were "remarkably resilient" in supporting the U.S. presence, with 71 percent still backing the American role in the country.

"But there are worrying signs in the anger over U.S. troops activities and civilian casualties that Uncle Sam may be starting to wear out his welcome," he said.

(Reporting by Paul Eckert, editing by Alan Elsner)