By Louis Charbonneau

BERLIN, July 3 (Reuters) - Germany's governing parties may be headed for a major clash over the German military's mandate in Afghanistan as civilian deaths mount and a resurgent Taliban appears to grow stronger.

Last month German authorities suggested Islamist militants might try to punish Germany for its Afghan presence by carrying out suicide attacks on its soil.

With the deaths of more than 20 German soldiers in Afghanistan since 2001, these factors have made the mission increasingly unpopular in Germany. A recent poll showed that nearly two thirds of Germans want to bring their troops home.

Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to countenance reducing German participation in the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, a move that would hurt ties with Washington. Some lawmakers in her conservative party even want to send more troops.

But some members of her centre-left coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), want a full withdrawal. And many are pushing for Germany to at least slim down its role.

The situation in Afghanistan has grown noticeably worse, and analysts say this could force Merkel to compromise with the SPD and accept a narrowed Afghan mandate in the autumn.

Hajo Funke, a political scientist at the Free University in Berlin, said Germans believed the situation there had deteriorated steadily for three years and saw the United States and its NATO allies as lacking a clear strategy.

"The military strategy seems to be doing no good," he said. "The whole strategy appears trapped. This is the perception in the German public."

Six years after the Taliban were overthrown in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the fundamentalist Islamic group has regained strength and is engaged in daily clashes with foreign forces in the country.

SHRINKING MANDATE

Ironically it was the government of SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder -- a fierce opponent of the Iraq war -- that decided Germany should join the fight in Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Now many in the SPD want to cut one of Germany's Afghan mandates -- namely the one under Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), the official U.S. name for its military response to the Sept. 11 attacks.

The two mandates, and a further one to conduct reconaissance flights over Afghanistan, will be a focus of debate at a meeting of SPD lawmakers on Wednesday.

Germany's NATO peacekeeping mandate permits the deployment of up to 3,500 troops as part of the alliance's 40,000-troop International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). So far most SPD members are not questioning the need to keep the ISAF mandate.

The separate OEF mandate, however, gives Germany the right to send up to 100 special forces to participate in anti-terrorist operations -- precisely the kinds of operations that German lawmakers fear are killing innocent civilians.

"I think it is likely that we will lose the special forces section in the OEF mandate," said Henning Riecke of the German Council on Foreign Relations. As no German special forces had been deployed for a long time, this mandate was not so crucial.

Riecke said a shift was needed away from the purely military aspect of the mission -- the fight against the Taliban -- in favour of reconstruction, strengthening security, combating the opium trade and the black market.

The SPD is lagging behind Merkel's conservatives and is hoping to boost its performance in polls by returning to its traditional role as Germany's peace party -- a position that is threatened by the rise of the new pacifist Left party.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the SPD's most popular politician, says it may be time to rethink Germany's mandate. "In the autumn we will have to look critically at the question of which part of our Afghanistan mandate we will continue and possibly change," he said.

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