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

Labour lawmaker Kim Howells, who chairs a security watchdog, said billions of pounds could be saved from a phased troop withdrawal and redirected to defending Britain''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.