British and US efforts to decimate the opium industry in Afghanistan have "hijacked" nation-building attempts in the country, and are driving support for the Taliban, a report said today.

The highly critical study of the five years since the US-led invasion found that Afghans are starving to death despite international donor pledges and that the foreign military presence was "fuelling resentment and fear" among the local population.

The report, by the Senlis Council, an international policy thinktank, said that the US-led international community had "failed to achieve stability and security" in the war-torn country and that attacks were perpetuated on a daily basis.

"Prioritising military-based security, the United States' and United Kingdom's focus on counter terrorism initiatives and militaristic responses to Afghanistan's opium crisis has undermined the local and international development community's ability to respond to Afghanistan's many poverty-related challenges," the report said.

"By focusing aid funds away from development and poverty relief, failed counter-narcotics policies have hijacked the international community's nation-building efforts and undermined Afghanistan's democratically elected government. Poppy cultivation is a food survival strategy for millions of Afghans, and the United States' and the United Kingdom's poppy eradication policies are fuelling violence and insecurity."

The report concluded that poverty was driving people to support the Taliban which now had a "strong psychological and de facto military control" over half of Afghanistan. It also found that the international military coalitions in Afghanistan - the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom and the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) - were fuelling resentment and fear.

"The distinctions between them are extremely blurred, with the Nato-led Isaf is now constantly engaged in war operations. Afghans see the international military coalitions as taking sides in a civil war situation, and as Nato-Isaf troops retreat to their fortified compounds in southern Afghanistan, locals perceive that the Taliban-led insurgents are once again defeating global military powers."

The report, called Afghanistan Five Years Later: The Return of the Taliban, is published after British forces experienced their bloodiest few days in the country, with 15 military personnel killed in an air crash near Kandahar and a suicide attack in Kabul. The new chief of general staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has also said the army can only just cope with the demands being placed on it by the government.

The Senlis Council report also expressed fears about the "growing scepticism" with which Afghans see their government, perceiving it to be accountable to international donors rather than local voters. It said that military expenditure outpaced development and reconstruction spending by 900% and that, because the fight against poverty has not been prioritised, "the international community's democracy-building efforts are collapsing as Afghans starve".

Three factors were contributing to the current situation, the report found. The international military presence being seen as an invading force rather than one of stabilisation, the "failed" anti-opium policy, and the failure of "an artificial reconstruction agenda" to address real needs of local people.

The 248-page report makes three recommendations, namely that emergency poverty relief is made a high priority, that there is a "complete overhaul" of the counter-narcotics strategies and that military operations take a back seat and provide support to development interventions.

The Senlis Council is an international policy think tank which aims to provide innovative analysis, ideas and proposals on foreign policy, security, development and counter-narcotics strategies.

It is funded by the Network of European Foundations, a group of 11 trusts and charities including the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and CAF, the Charities Aid Foundation.

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