A new report is calling on NATO to double its troop levels in Afghanistan to 80,000 soldiers.

The report by the Senlis Council -- an international think tank with an office in Ottawa -- also argues that resurgent Taliban now have a presence in about half of Afghanistan and could threaten Kabul in 2008.

"We can't defeat the Taliban just by fighting (with a) small army in Kandahar," Almas Bawar, a Senlis Council spokesperson, told CTV Newsnet's Mike Duffy Live.

"We need more troops so we can stop the bombing (of) villages. It will decrease civilian casualties. In the meantime, we'll have more forces to fight insurgents (such as the) Taliban on the ground in Kandahar, where they are taking district after district each week."

Senlis's new security assessment report is based on field research conducted over the past month.

The group called for the following:

• Doubling NATO troop levels to 80,000
• Remove all caveats constraining troop deployment
• Expand the fight by moving into Pakistan and attacking insurgent bases there -- with the Pakistani government's permission

"The Taliban have established firm roots across the border in Pakistan. President Musharraf has been unable to deal with these bases, and as a result it is impossible to stop the growth of the insurgency in Afghanistan," said Norine MacDonald, president and lead researcher of the Senlis Council.

"NATO troops in Pakistan are therefore urgently required to quell this growing threat, and ensure that this area is closed down as a home base for the Taliban and al Qaeda," she added.

Musharraf has not allowed U.S. troops to enter Pakistan in pursuit of al Qaeda suspects.

He is fighting a growing insurgency in the so-called tribal areas like North and South Waziristan. The New York Times reported last week that despite Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule, the Taliban have increased the territory they hold in those areas and are expanding into new areas.

On NATO troop numbers, MacDonald told CTV Newsnet that "Canada is doing more than its fair share (in Afghanistan)" and praised the job this country's soldiers are doing there.

However, other countries have to both increase their troop numbers and allow them to fight, she said.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay dismissed the Senlis report, saying it was "not credible."

But Bob Rae, the Liberals' foreign affairs critic, said the report should be taken seriously.

With the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan -- and with a recent UN report indicating that suicide bombers were coming from Pakistan -- "the security situation is obviously very much a concern," he told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday.

"I think it's important for Canadians to come to grips with just how tough the situation is."

Military analyst Col. Mike Capstick told Mike Duffy Live that the Senlis report is on the right track, although not entirely correct in its analysis.

"I think an extra 40,000 (NATO troops) may be too many, and I'm a bit concerned that they didn't talk very much in the report about training the Afghan national security forces," Capstick said.

'Combat aid', narcotics

Senlis wants to see "combat aid agencies" established in the south of Afghanistan, thus putting the British and Canadian militaries in charge of aid delivery.

"The delivery of food and development aid by the British and Canadian militaries would be a huge boost to the hearts and minds campaign of both governments in southern Afghanistan," MacDonald said.

"This would be an excellent counter-insurgency strategy -- strengthening ties with the local communities, which is the only viable way to defeat the insurgency in Afghanistan."

Senlis has long supported encouraging Afghan farmers to grow opium poppies but for the production of medical morphine, which it claims is in short supply globally.

As part of its Poppies for Medicine initiative, something the European Parliament endorsed last month, Senlis outlined specifications for a pilot project to test the benefits of legal morphine production by Afghan farmers.

The U.S. government wants to see the poppy crop controlled by aerially spraying herbicides -- something Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai opposes.

"Chemical spraying of farming communities would mean we lose any hope of ever winning back the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. It would spell utter disaster for NATO's stabilization mission in the country," said Jorrit Kamminga, Senlis's Paris-based head of policy research.

Last week, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said the value opium production in Afghanistan is equivalent to about 53 per cent of the country's legal economic output.

Antonio Maria Costa, the agency's executive director, called on NATO to take a more active role in counter-narcotics operations.

"Since drugs are funding the insurgency, NATO has a self-interest in supporting Afghan forces in destroying drug labs, markets and convoys. Destroy the drug trade and you cut off the Taliban's main funding source," he said.