Afghanistan president branded "weak" by own adviser

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai is a weak, foreign-influenced leader whose government would not last even a week if Western troops left the country, his senior security adviser told a local newspaper at the weekend.

The comments, in the Payame Mujahed weekly, are another sign of the political difficulties facing Karzai, under growing pressure to improve conditions in the country as a resurgent Taliban step up attacks on government and Western forces.

"But it is a reality that Mr. Karzai is both under pressure of foreigners and also the team or group they have inside Afghanistan," Mohammad Qasim Fahim was quoted as saying.

Some 50,000 foreign troops under NATO and U.S. military command are stationed in Afghanistan.

A government spokesman did not make any immediate comment.

The Washington-backed Karzai has been leading Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces and local Afghan militias, including one under Fahim, removed the Taliban from power in 2001.

Fahim served as defense minister and first deputy to Karzai until he was dumped in 2004 during the country's first direct presidential elections, which Karzai won.

Karzai appointed him last year as his senior security adviser to help deal with a rise in Taliban attacks. But relations between the pair remained strained, and Fahim became a member of a newly formed party dedicated to cutting the president's powers.