President Obama has ruled out a reduction in troop numbers in Afghanistan and is heading for a “middle road” strategy that will lead to some additional forces — but not the full surge of 40,000 sought by his ground commander.

White House aides emphasise that no final decision on his crucial Afghan strategy review has been made — as the war’s eighth anniversary passed yesterday — but one option under serious consideration is a “hybrid” model of an expanded counter-insurgency campaign together with increased strikes against al-Qaeda inside Pakistan.

Signs that Mr Obama might be considering some additional forces, but not the full number requested by his ground commander, Stanley McChrystal, are causing alarm inside the Pentagon and among Republicans and some Democrats on Capitol Hill because they fear that it will lead to failure.

After Mr Obama heard the views of a large bipartisan group of senators and congressmen in the White House on Tuesday, John McCain, Mr Obama’s Republican opponent in last year’s election, emerged to say: “Half measures is what I worry about.”Citing the Bush Administration’s experience in Iraq, Mr McCain added that half measures led to failure and an erosion of American public support.

A new poll yesterday showed that two thirds of Americans were willing to see soldiers die in Afghanistan to defeat terrorism, but only 38 per cent favoured sending more troops.

Ike Skelton, a moderate Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee who supports General McChrystal’s request for tens of thousands more troops, warned Mr Obama last month against a “half-ass it and hope” strategy.

Mr Obama told the group he had ruled out reducing forces in Afghanistan, as well as an alternative plan to shift the mission to just hunting al-Qaeda. The President appeared to be reaching for some middle ground. He added at the meeting that he wanted to “dispense with the straw man argument that this is about either doubling down or leaving Afghanistan”, as White House aides later described it.

Bruce Riedel, who headed Mr Obama’s Afghan strategy review this year but is not involved in the current process, told The Times: “My gut feeling is I don’t see a fundamental change of course.”

One possibility, he said, would be for a staggered request of troops from General McChrystal — 10,000 now, with further instalments later. The President, Mr Riedel said, could then accede to a first request, and say he will review the additional ones at a later date.

“That is one way you [Obama] can respond rigorously and urgently but without buying in to the whole approach,” Mr Riedel said.

Mr McCain also spoke to the growing frustrations within the military over Mr Obama’s very public and lengthy reassessment of the counter-insurgency strategy he announced just six months ago, with some worried that the President appeared to be dithering.

During the White House meeting, Mr McCain reportedly told the President that “time is not on our side”, adding: “This should not be a leisurely process.” A few minutes later, as he concluded the meeting, Mr Obama said: “John, I can assure you this won’t be leisurely. No one feels more urgency to get this right than I do.”As Mr Obama met for the third time yesterday with his war Cabinet, stunning and sobering new details emerged of the Taleban attack on a remote US outpost last weekend that resulted in the deaths of eight US soldiers and three members of the Afghan Army.

The fighting was so fierce that at one point the insurgents breached the perimeter of the base, which was surrounded by high ground from where machinegun fire and mortars rained down on the troops for hours.

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