Obama's advisers, after weeks of in-depth meetings, are coalescing around a strategy aimed at protecting about 10 top population centers in Afghanistan, The New York Times said.

The strategy would fall short of a full counter-insurgency strategy against the Taliban and other elements but still seek to foster stability, the newspaper said, quoting unnamed senior officials.

Stressing the president had yet to make a decision, the Times said the debate was not about whether to send more troops but how many more would be needed to safeguard most vital parts of the country.

The report mentioned four brigades, of about 4,500 troops each, that might form part of the new strategy. Cities meriting protection would include Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Herat and Jalalabad, the Times said.

The strategy's core, if implemented, could be open to criticism, the newspaper noted, as it recognizes the Taliban as an indigenous force that cannot be completely eradicated.

There was no immediate White House comment on the report.

Obama will meet the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday, to hear input on future Afghan and Pakistan policy from all branches of the armed services, as he edges towards a fateful decision on whether to deploy thousands more troops.

Multiple signs that Obama may be nearing a decisive moment followed the deaths of eight more US soldiers on the battlefield, making October the bloodiest month for American forces since the war began in 2001.

Six United Nations staff were killed meanwhile on Wednesday in a brazen attack on a guesthouse there, a UN spokesman said, heightening concern that even the Afghan capital cannot be secured from emboldened rebel violence.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Air Force One that Obama's meeting with the joint chiefs was a sign the president was "getting, certainly, toward the end" of the policy review.

Gibbs repeated that Obama would make a final decision on Afghanistan, and General Stanley McChrystal's request for at least 40,000 more counter-insurgency troops "in the coming weeks."

Obama is under intense pressure, as rising violence in Afghanistan brings more US fatalities and a dip in popular support for a conflict that has now dragged on for eight years.

Speculation is rife in Washington over whether Obama will reveal his hand before heading off on an eight-day trip to Asia on November 11.

Last week, Obama said that he may make up his mind before the Afghan re-run election on November 7, but may not announce his decision.

The US capital was also buzzing after the resignation of a diplomat who publicly criticized the Afghan war.

Matthew Hoh, 36, was the senior State Department official in Afghanistan's Zabul province -- a hotbed of Taliban militancy -- until last month when he became the first US official known to have resigned in protest at the conflict.

In a letter to his superiors, Hoh described the United States as "a supporting actor" in Afghanistan's decades-old civil war, adding that he had "lost understanding of and confidence in" the US mission.

Gibbs said Obama had read the Washington Post's report on Hoh's resignation but had not seen the letter himself.

Senator John Kerry, meanwhile, who last week helped convince Afghan President Hamid Karzai to embrace the run-off vote after a fraud-tainted first round, further stirred the pot on Obama's decision.

A week after saying it would be "common sense" for Obama to put his decision on hold until after the Afghan election, Kerry said he would be "surprised" if Obama did not announce his decision before leaving for Asia on November 11.

The US president leaves Washington on November 11 and remains in the region for eight days, with stops in Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea.

Obama, after being accused of "dithering" by former vice president Dick Cheney, told a military audience in Florida that he would never "rush" the decision to ask Americans to risk their lives in a war half a world away.

The latest attacks on US troops in Afghanistan, claimed by the Taliban, occurred a day after 14 US soldiers and narcotics agents died in helicopter crashes, bringing to 53 the number of US dead this month.

related report
Afghan crash probe faults British defence ministry
Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) was accused of serious failures Wednesday by a report into the mid-air explosion of a Royal Air Force (RAF) spy plane in Afghanistan which killed 14 troops in 2006.

A study by top lawyer Charles Haddon-Cave identified a "failure of leadership, culture and priorities", Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth told the House of Commons.

Ainsworth also accepted the report's finding that "in our pursuit of financial savings, the MoD and the RAF allowed their focus on safety to suffer."

The 37-year-old Nimrod MR2 blew up over Kandahar in southern Afghanistan shortly after carrying out mid-air refuelling when leaking fuel spilled onto a hot air pipe.

The incident was the biggest single loss of life for British forces in more than a decade.

Ainsworth apologised to the families of those who died over the findings of the report, which singled out two now retired senior RAF figures for particular criticism.

"I am sorry for the mistakes that have been made and the lives that have been lost as a result of our failure," he said. "Nothing I can say or do will bring these men back."

In his report, Haddon-Cave said the MoD had suffered "deep organisational trauma" following a defence review in 1998 which saw budgeting prioritised over safety.

"There was a shift in culture and priorities in the MoD towards 'business' and financial targets, at the expense of functional values such as safety and airworthiness," he said.

He also criticised defence companies BAE Systems and QinetiQ over the plane's safety regime.

Ainsworth said he accepted the report's findings and would publish a detailed response before the end of the year.

The mother of one of the troops who died, Trish Knight, called for top brass to quit in the wake of the report's findings.

"There should be some resignations by top people over the lies they have been telling us since 2006," she said. "There should be resignations right from the very top."

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