KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan will need financial and military support for many years after a 2014 deadline for foreign combat troops to return home, and may not be able to balance its budget until the middle of next decade, Britain’s ambassador in Kabul said.

William Patey, speaking 10 years after the start of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, said he was confident the Afghan army was already stronger than the Taliban, but it would need long-term help with training and funds.

British and other forces should provide that, because if the Taliban returned to power by force, it risked the country becoming a safe haven for al Qaeda again, he added.

“It’s important to get across (the message) that Afghanistan is not being abandoned in 2014, the nature of our engagement is changing,” Patey told Reuters in his Kabul residence.

President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers agreed all foreign combat troops would return home by the end of 2014, prompting fears among some Afghans that their security forces would not be able to stop the country slipping into full-blown civil war.

But Patey said that while foreign soldiers would no longer go out to fight, Afghan forces would get funds and support.

Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, will likely need long-term financial help, he warned, although Karzai’s government hopes development of untapped mineral resources will make it financially independent within years, not decades.