Unveiling his strategy to end the unpopular and costly eight-year war in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama on Tuesday ordered an extra 30,000 troops into battle but earmarked July 2011 as the start for a withdrawal.

The timetable came under fire from Obama's hawkish opponents at home and sparked fear in the region that the Taliban would sit out the surge, regroup and attack a pared down US force in 18 months' time.

"This will have massive and destructive side effects," said Ahmad Behzad, an Afghan MP, analyst and opponent of President Hamid Karzai.

"It will boost the morale of terrorist networks. It will make them hope they have a chance of getting power," he told AFP.

"This is ideal for the Pakistani military and fundamentalists... They will restore their rule in Afghanistan through terrorist networks," Behzad said.

Washington sees Afghanistan and Pakistan as entwined in the war on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, but relations between two neighbours are characterised by mutual suspicion and finger-pointing.

Most Afghans believe that Pakistan's powerful military establishment is sponsoring the Taliban, preparing for the day US troops leave so Islamabad can exercise influence over a Taliban government to offset regional superpower India.

Islamabad fears that a US surge in Afghanistan could push Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants over the border, as when US-led troops invaded in 2001, and urged Washington to ensure "no adverse fallout on Pakistan".

"It appears that Afghanistan again will be pushed into a destabilisation, and naturally destabilisation in Afghanistan does affect Pakistan," Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for Pakistan's tribal areas, told AFP.

With a weak government, economy in freefall and bombs killing more civilians than in Afghanistan, Pakistan is frustrated by US pressure to crackdown on Al-Qaeda and nervous that US intervention will only increase.

"Ultimately, if Pakistan's army does not do what America wants, the Americans will use their ground troops for that purpose," said Hasan Askari, a visiting Pakistani professor at Johns Hopkins University.

The Islamist presence in Pakistan is complex -- groups opposed to Indian rule in Kashmir, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda affiliates, safe havens for Taliban who attack in Afghanistan and homegrown Taliban attacking within Pakistan.

"The problem with Pakistan is they don't have the capacity to open all four, five fronts at the same time and that is what the US is not willing to really understand," said Askari.

Afghanistan welcomes US pressure on Pakistan to do more to root out extremism, accusing Islamabad of fighting against Taliban who bomb Pakistani cities and also being in league with Taliban fighting US troops in Afghanistan.

"It's very clear that Pakistan does not want to abandon its strategic asset in Afghanistan, which are Taliban," said Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies.

Many Afghans believe the US timeline is meant to appease opposition to the war back in the United States, confident that the stakes are too high.

"I'm pretty convinced that the international community could not abandon Afghanistan and leave an unstable Pakistan with nuclear weapons and an Al-Qaeda which is having more and more control of Pakistani territory," said Mir.

"I'm pretty sure that we'll have some progress with 30,000 troops. It'll put pressure on Pakistan and put pressure on Karzai to fix his administration."

Branded paranoid by friends and foes alike, Pakistan's military is nevertheless preoccupied with the perceived threat from India and frustrated that US policies do not better address those concerns.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars since independence in 1947, two of them over Kashmir, a Himalayan territory split between the two but claimed in full by both.

Islamabad's fears are fuelled by massive Indian investment in Afghanistan, as the country emerges as a regional superpower. Hundreds of Afghans study in India, and Indian consulates are springing up across Afghanistan.

"Even here, America doesn't appear to be sensitive about it. If Pakistani cooperation is needed, then Pakistani sensitivities have to be built into this system," said Askari.

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