Afghanistan won commitments of additional aid and more troops from the international community in 2008, but a deadly Taliban insurgency, rampant crime and an unchecked drugs trade show no sign of abating.

With more than 270 foreign soldiers -- most of them American -- killed already this year, 2008 has been the deadliest since the fall of the hardline Taliban regime in 2001 for the 70,000 international troops deployed here.

General David Petraeus, who now commands US forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, admitted that "in certain areas of Afghanistan clearly there has been a spiral downward that all involved... want to arrest".

This month, the International Council on Security and Development went as far as to say that Taliban insurgents had established a "permanent presence" in roughly three-quarters of the country -- a claim denied by Kabul.

"The increase in their geographic spread illustrates that the Taliban''s political, military and economic strategies are now more successful than the West''s in Afghanistan," the London-based think tank said.

The report suggested that Taliban fighters were posing an increasing threat to the capital -- an assertion dismissed by the Afghan foreign ministry, which said the think tank had been hoodwinked by the Taliban''s spin doctors.