Lieutenant General Sir Mike Jackson warned that the 'severe' Balkan winter must figure in future planning for the military campaign.

He told BBC Two's Newsnight programme that allied troops could initially find themselves helping to run aspects of civil life as well as security.

He said it still was not clear whether things like utilities, schools and fire brigades still worked.

Troops might be asked to play a civil role in Kosovo

Sir Mike said winter in Kosovo was a "severe several months".

''I see a very, very miserable and hard winter if we have refugees in tents over that period. This tells me something about timing.

"The first snows come, depending on how high you are above sea level, in early to late October, so that gives you a bit of a timetable where really we ought to be thinking very hard about bringing this conflict to its resolution well before then, to give me enough time to get that security in Kosovo and to start even a bare minimum of life support."

'We haven't got very long'

He added: "But we haven't got very long, it seems to me, if such a change of strategy is decided upon."

Put to him that the time remaining was perhaps a couple of weeks, he said: "That's your timing, but I wouldn't disagree wildly with what you say."

The BBC's Emily Buchanan on Dr Carey's warnings of a "diplomatic deafness"

Meanwhile, Dr George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has issued his strongest call yet for diplomatic moves to end the Kosovo conflict.

He said: "I believe the intensity of the search for a negotiated peace has to match the intensity of the prosecution of the war, and be clearly seen to be so.

"Of course, I am not suggesting peace at any price. But I do urge that those presented with opportunities for peace will not lose sight of them amid the clamour, discord and disorientation of war."

Inter-church talks

Dr George Carey says diplomatic efforts must be persued as strongly as the war effort

Writing in The Times, Dr Carey said a strategy based on bombing Serbia into submission could cause "diplomatic deafness".

The Archbishop's intervention comes after talks with Serb churches and other religious leaders.