LONDON (AFP) - The government should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, a former junior foreign minister said on Wednesday, in a split with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government over the drawn-out conflict.

Labour MP Kim Howells, who chairs a security watchdog, said billions of pounds could be saved from a phased troop withdrawal and redirected to defending the country's borders from attacks by Al-Qaeda.

"It would be better to bring home the great majority of our fighting men and women and concentrate, instead, on using the money saved to secure our own borders, (and) gather intelligence on terrorist activities inside Britain," he said, writing in the Guardian newspaper.

Howells also called for an expansion of intelligence operations abroad and greater co-operation with foreign intelligence services.

Howells, a foreign affairs minister between 2005 and 2008 with responsibility for Afghanistan, chairs the parliamentary intelligence committee that oversees the work of the intelligence and security agencies.

Britain has some 9,000 troops and is sending another 500 to the war-torn nation where 100,000 NATO and US soldiers are battling an increasingly violent Taliban resurgence.

The conflict has killed 224 soldiers since the 2001 US-led invasion, and is growing increasingly unpopular among the public, placing mounting pressure on Brown's government over its commitment to the strategy.

Brown urged President Hamid Karzai on Monday to set out a "unifying programme" for Afghanistan and tackle corruption after he was handed a second term in office.

Howells accused the Kabul government of "largely squandering the opportunity offered to it by the UN-led occupation".

"Sooner rather than later a properly planned phased withdrawal of our forces from Helmand province has to be announced. If it is an answer that serves, also, to focus the minds of those in the Kabul government who have shown such a poverty of leadership over the past seven years, then so much the better."

Howells said the international military involvement in Afghanistan had "subdued" Al-Qaeda's activities, but failed to destroy the organisation.