There are three damning reports today about the west's failure in Afghanistan, amid alarming press reports about Britain's troop shortages.
Almost a thousand British troops are being "rushed to the battlefields of Afghanistan" after having their combat training cut by half, according to the Times. "The 'exceptional' measure is being proposed," it says, "to meet a serious shortage of manpower."
It says battalions are being sent out to Afghanistan 100 men short of the required 650. To plug the gap, the training of new recruits could be cut by 14 weeks.
It quotes nervousness among defence sources about the idea. The MoD insists no decisions have been made.
The Times goes on with the warning of an independent US panel that Afghanistan risks becoming "the forgotten war" because of dwindling international support and growing violence.
The panel, chaired by the retired General James Jones and the former US ambassador to the UN Thomas Pickering, argues Afghanistan could be a tougher task than Iraq.
The Times' Bronwen Maddox argues that "Jones and Pickering overstate their case, giving too little credit to military progress of recent months", and also neglect the problems facing the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, whom she calls "terrifyingly vulnerable".
The Independent focuses on a young journalist sentenced to death for downloading and distributing a report about women's rights. It urges readers to sign a petition to save Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, whose sentence was upheld by an ally of Karzai.
The paper says Kambaksh has become the victim of Karzai's diplomatic game of distancing himself from the west.
In an editorial on the campaign to save Kambaksh, the Independent says: "The idea that any individual in any country should face execution for downloading information from the internet is as abhorrent as it is incomprehensible. That this should be happening in a nation whose government benefits from the military and financial support of western countries, Britain included, should give us great pause for thought."
* This is an extract from the Wrap, our digest of the daily papers.
