World cannot afford to abandon Afghanistan - Rice

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged “difficult going” fighting a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, but insisted that the world cannot afford to pull out now.

“We owe it to the people of Afghanistan to help them finish the job,” Rice said as she thanked Canada for its role as a leader of Nato forces in the country.

Canada’s combat role is unpopular at home, as is the US-led war in Iraq.

Afghanistan is struggling with the deadliest militant violence since US-led forces toppled the hard-line Taliban regime five years ago. The United States blamed the Taliban for incubating al Qaida as a terrorist force and for harbouring Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Canada has 2,200 troops in Afghanistan and has lost at least 20 soldiers there.

Opponents of the Afghanistan mission suggested Rice’s visit to Canada was an attempt to persuade Canada to commit more forces. But Rice and her host, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay, said she made no such request.

“I know it’s very difficult going in Afghanistan,” Rice said in an address to Conservative supporters and others in the small town of Stellarton north of Halifax.

MacKay invited Rice to accompany him to his home district where polite but cheeky protests greeted the pair.

“Condi, We Don’t Want Your War Machine,” read one sign hoisted along the road to a museum Rice and MacKay visited. Other signs made light of the tandem visit by the two unmarried diplomats. “Condi + Peter Make Love Not War,” read one, decorated with a large, red heart.

During a news conference with MacKay, Rice said the United States left too soon after supporting Afghanistan in the 1980s civil war.

“Afghanistan became a failed state and a haven for terrorism,” Rice said. “We all came to pay for that.”

The deadliest fighting since the fall of the Taliban government has killed more than 500 people, mostly militants, since mid-May and confirmed fears of a Taliban military resurgence in southern Afghanistan, where Nato took command from a US-led coalition on August 1.

Britain, Canada and the Netherlands have taken lead roles, pumping in around 8,000 troops and bringing Nato forces in Afghanistan to about 20,000. The alliance claims to have inflicted grave insurgent losses, including more than 250 in an offensive near Kandahar this month.

But at least 35 British and Canadian soldiers have died in a little more than a month, and militants show no signs of giving up.