Officials from the Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and the Afghan intelligence agency are stationed at Bagram Air Field as part of an effort to ensure the Afghan government is included in military decisions, particularly on issues such as night raids and house searches, presidential spokesman Waheed Omar said.

But the country’s National Security Council ruled in a meeting Sunday that this system — called the Joint Operations Command — is not working. “The results of the work of the Joint Operations Command has been ineffective,” the group said in statement, explaining that ministeries were not involved enough in operational decisions.

It’s a judgment that calls into question the claim by the US-led international military coalition that a large number of its operations are “Afghan-led.” While there are many high-level Afghan officials involved in military strategy in the country, it has been difficult to determine how much the claim of Afghan leadership is genuine and how much involves Afghan commanders as figureheads.

And while most operations include both NATO and Afghan forces, US troops on the ground regularly complain that their Afghan counterparts are unskilled and undisciplined. A spokesman for NATO forces, Capt. Gary Kirchner, said they were working on getting a copy of the statement before commenting.

Omar said the council was not necessarily blaming NATO forces for the breakdown of the Afghan consultation system, explaining that the reason for the problems needed to be investigated further.

“Maybe they are not consulted, or they are not in a position to influence the decisions, or maybe they are not communicating back to the line ministries what they are doing there,” Omar said.

The criticism comes as one of the largest military operations — around the southern city of Kandahar — works through the third phase of a push that began this summer to rout insurgents from their southern strongholds.

Meanwhile, the Afghan government Sunday rolled back its plan to disband all private security firms, declaring that those protecting embassies and military bases could maintain those operations in the country.

President Hamid Karzai's office said firms "providing security for embassies, transport of diplomats, diplomatic residences, international forces' bases and depots can continue operation within these limits."

Karzai in August ordered that all private security contractors operating in the country, both Afghan and international, must cease operations by Jan. 1, 2011, despite a continuing Taleban and Al-Qaeda insurgency.

The decree led to widespread concern that the deadline was too tight to find alternatives amid a deteriorating security situation, and fears that some diplomats and private companies would be forced to leave Afghanistan.

While the measure received widespread support in principle, diplomats, military officials and private security contractors have said Karzai's government has been under intense pressure to reconsider the blanket ban.

In a brief statement Sunday, Karzai's office said that "concerns expressed by NATO commanders and foreign embassies about the dissolution of private security companies" had been considered.

Firms not involved in military or diplomatic security would be dissolved as planned, it said.