© Omar Sobhani/Reuters
A US soldier keeps watch at the site of an explosion in Logar province south of Kabul
The Taliban has said it poses no threat to the west in a move apparently intended to influence the intense debate over the future of the war in Afghanistan by suggesting weakening ties to al-Qaida.

The statement, which appeared on several websites used by the Taliban, will be scrutinised by President Barack Obama's national security advisers who are reported to be pressing him to shift the focus of the war from the Taliban in Afghanistan to al-Qaida in Pakistan. Some of the advisers, along with US vice-president Joe Biden argue that the Taliban is not a direct threat to the US while al-Qaida's deepening intrusion into Pakistan threatens to turn it into a new base for terrorist assaults on America as well as destabilising a close ally.

The Taliban statement said it is fighting to expel foreign invaders and to establish an Islamic state.

"We did not have any agenda to harm other countries including Europe nor [do] we have such agenda today," said the statement posted on a known Taliban website. "Still, if you want to turn the country of the proud and pious Afghans into a colony, then know that we have an unwavering determination and have braced for a prolonged war."

The Taliban also noted that those dying or displaced in Afghanistan "were not involved in the [9/11] events of New York" .

The statement may be a sign that senior Taliban figures are reassessing the movement's longstanding though often tense alliance with al-Qaida. In a recent exchange of emails with The Guardian, a Taliban spokesman avoided questions on the relationship between the Afghan insurgents and Osama bin Laden. The spokesman also boasted that the Taliban monitored public opinion in western Europe and policy arguments in the US closely.

In Washington, Obama has been holding a series of high-level meetings as he weighs up whether to accept the recommendation of the Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, to deploy up to 40,000 more troops to combat the Taliban. McChrystal argues that without a swift and significant increase in the size of the international force the war against the Taliban may never be won.

But Biden and, according to officials speaking to the US press, most of Obama's national security advisers favour shifting the focus to hunting down al-Qaida in Pakistan because it poses a greater threat to the US. They argue that the Taliban and Bin Laden's followers are not inextricably linked - a view that would appear to be reinforced by the Taliban's statement. If that position were accepted, it may even open the way to dealings with the Taliban that would be unthinkable with al-Qaida.

However, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates, have argued that the two groups remain closely tied and that if the Taliban were to retake power in Afghanistan it would again provide safe haven to al-Qaida. It is unclear whether the Taliban's statement represents a genuine shift in position or a clever attempt to influence an ongoing debate, or both.

The Taliban stand to benefit even if they are not serious as their intervention will fuel the increasingly acrimonious and muddled debate on Afghan strategy in the west and the public disillusionment with the war. Or they will gain if the statement is taken seriously and they are genuinely interested in repositioning themselves as independent from al-Qaida.

Whether they could split away from al-Qaida is unclear. Some strong personal ties have developed between key figures on both sides - such as between Mullah Muhammad Omar and Bin Laden - and a few specialists from al-Qaida have helped the insurgents inside Afghanistan.

But al-Qaida is still almost entirely composed of Arabs from core Middle Eastern countries and the Maghreb, while the Taliban are predominantly Pashtun Afghan. Equally, since the 1990s there have always been tensions between the international agenda of al-Qaida and the domestic agenda of the Taliban.