MUNICH, Germany, Feb 10 (Reuters) - NATO forces will have smashed most of the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan by 2009 and President Hamid Karzai's government should be more able to rule by itself, the alliance's chief said on Saturday.

"In 2009, we should see Afghanistan on the road to peace with the back of the resistance broken -- but with undoubtedly a NATO military presence on the ground," Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a security conference in Munich.

"I hope in 2009 that we see an Afghanistan government that is better able to take the country into its own hands, which is what we hope for," he added.

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