KANDAHAR: For Ata Mohammad, who lost 19 members of his family during a fight between Nato and Taliban militants, the choices ahead are bleak. He has no particular wish to join the Taliban. He could support Nato and President Hamid Karzai's government, but feels betrayed by the violence in the Panjwayi district he lives in. His other options include becoming a refugee in Pakistan or Iran.

Many in Kandahar say their confidence in the government is falling, and some say that is helping fuel support for the Taliban.

''Should we join the Taliban? Should we join the government? We don't know,'' Ata. ''The Taliban, they are causing problems for us, but the government is causing problems for us too.''

''We can hardly feed our family bread. We are struggling for our life,'' he said. ''And with the Taliban and the government and Nato fighting, we are victims, too.''

Many in southern Afghanistan had high hopes after the election of their fellow Pukhtun tribesman Karzai in 2004, but two years later remain mired in poverty and lamenting a lack of security and development in the south.

Heavy-handed Nato tactics, including recent airstrikes in Panjwayi that killed civilians-- and hundreds of suspected militants-- have only deepened suspicion of foreign forces attempting to crush a resurgent Taliban resistance five years after its hardline regime was ousted for hosting Osama bin Laden.

Mohammad Eisah Khan, a former judge and a tribal elder in Kandahar with a long, white beard, rattled off the reasons support for the government is slipping.

''There is no security, the people are not safe,'' he said. The government ''is plagued by corruption. There is no education. There are very few schools. There are no good doctors in Kandahar province.''

The Afghan government is facing a ''crisis of legitimacy'' because many appointed administrators ''are quite simply thugs,'' said Joanna Nathan, the Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank.

Gauging support for the government or for an insurgent militia known for its suicide attacks and roadside bombs is difficult in a country with no reliable way of conducting opinion polls. Nathan said most Taliban fighters are not ideologically driven but pick up arms as the result of disillusionment or powerlessness.

''Taliban sympathisers are increasing day by day,'' said Abdul Wadood, a jobless 55-year-old who last year moved his family out of the Panjwayi district, an hour's drive from Kandahar.

''Eighty per cent of the people out in the districts support the Taliban. Every house has a fighter in it supporting the Taliban. If the government comes, they just put down their weapons,'' he said.

Western and Afghan officials say only a few Taliban backers support the fighters' hard-line ideology. Poppy growers tacitly support the Taliban because of the protection they provide, and others are only looking for a paying job or are coerced.

Kandahar's governor, Asadullah Khalid, said all Afghans want a ''good life and peaceful life and want a good future for their children,'' which does not include supporting the Taliban.—AP