After a weekend when five new deaths took the toll to 204, Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth suggested British forces could be scaled back in coming years, dismissing as "ridiculous" claims they could be there for four decades.

But amid questions over Ainsworth's suggestion, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government faced growing calls either to pull troops out of Afghanistan altogether or provide stronger support.

A poll out Monday said 82 percent of Britons believe the government is not doing enough to back up troops in Afghanistan, compared to 12 percent who said support is sufficient.

Fifty-seven percent said troops should not be fighting in Afghanistan -- where crucial presidential elections take place Thursday -- and only 13 percent said it was "very clear" why troops were there.

The YouGov poll commissioned by Sky News television surveyed 2,127 Britons between August 7 and 10.

Ainsworth defended Britain's mission and talked up the possibility of its troops playing a lower-key role in the coming years, even though the United States is widely expected to ask Britain to send more after the poll.

"The troops know that we've made progress in the last few months, and I still firmly believe that Afghanistan is winnable," he told BBC radio.

"Over the next couple of years, there is a very real prospect that we can make substantial progress on the security side in Afghanistan...

"We can see increasingly the Afghan national army and the Afghan national police taking up front-line positions and our people increasingly involved in training and mentoring that force."

Ainsworth and David Richards, the incoming head of the British army, also tried to play down a furore over an interview in which Richards was quoted as saying Britain could be in Afghanistan for up to 40 years.

Ainsworth said it was "ridiculous" to suggest, as some reports had, that the military effort could last this long, while Richards took the unusual step of issuing a statement to insist there was "no difference" between his views and those of Ainsworth.

"Afghanistan will need international help for many years to come -- for example through development, governance and security sector reform -- and I am sure the UK will play a part in that," Richards said.

"But a British military force along current lines should only be needed for a much shorter period."

British troop levels in Afghanistan are at their highest yet -- 9,150, up from 8,300 in April. Overall, there are more than 100,000 international soldiers in Afghanistan, nearly two-thirds of them American.

New figures out Monday highlighted the escalation of violence British troops face in Afghanistan -- 94 soldiers were wounded last month, just over double the figure for June.

Of these, 19 were very seriously hurt, the Ministry of Defence said.

Amid a political row about adequate equipment for frontline troops, the outgoing head of the army, General Richard Dannatt, told Channel 4 news he was waging a campaign for more resources.

"I am waging some kind of campaign within the Ministry of Defence and within government to make sure that our people on the front line carrying out difficult and dangerous operations on behalf of the nation have got the right level of manpower and have got the right amount of equipment," he said.

Anti-war campaigners Stop The War Coalition held a vigil at London's Cenotaph -- a memorial to Britain's war dead -- when the names of British dead in Afghanistan were read out and flowers laid.

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