Nato ministers expected to announce Afghan mission expansion

Nato defence ministers were today expected to approve an extension of the alliance’s Afghan security mission across the whole of the country, taking in the volatile eastern region and bringing around 10,000 US troops under allied command.

Diplomats said the move had been discussed at an early morning meeting of ambassadors at Nato headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and was likely to be announced during the ministers’ talks in the Slovenian resort of Portoroz.

The decision comes just two months after Nato troops moved into the southern sector, sparking fierce resistance from Taliban fighters and dragging the alliance into the first major ground combat since it was formed six decades ago.

European ministers will also come under pressure to send more troops to the southern sector where soldiers from Canada, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands have borne the brunt of the fighting.

“I will be urging Nato to look again to see what more can be done,” said Britain’s Defence Secretary Des Browne ahead of the meeting. “Allies must step up to the plate to meet our collective commitment to support the government and people of Afghanistan.”

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to make a similar call.

A senior US official said allies were expected to come forward with more troops although they may not fully meet the requirement of up to 2,500 extra soldiers backed by helicopters and planes which Nato’s top commander, US General James Jones, has requested.

The 26 Nato defence ministers, gathering for their two-day meeting in Portoroz, are expected to agree today on a plan to donate surplus military equipment to Afghanistan, and also are likely to announce new commitments of military resources.

According to a senior US official, Afghanistan has compiled a list of needed equipment, from helicopters and vehicles to armour and guns, and officials will set up a programme to co-ordinate the donations.

The official requested anonymity because the ministers had not met to finalise the agreement, which is similar to one set up previously for Iraq.

Jones has been pushing for Nato to take over security operations in the eastern sector from the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom. The move had been expected sometime this autumn. It will not need Nato to muster significant numbers of extra troops because around 10,000 US troops will switch to the alliance command.

The United States will continue its separate anti-terrorist mission to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaida operatives with about 8,000 troops.

The switch of command will take the Nato force to about 30,000 troops. About 9,000 are engaged in the Taliban’s former southern heartland where allied commander admit the resistance from the fundamentalist insurgents has caught them by surprise.

Nato on Tuesday said a Polish offer to gradually send 900 extra troops to serve as a mobile reserve force had gone a significant way to meet Jones’ requirement for reinforcements, but they are still seeking more.

Most of Nato’s troops are operating in the relatively calm north and west to support reconstruction efforts. Rumsfeld is expected to push nations such as Germany, Spain and Italy, which have troops in the north and west to lift restrictions on where in Afghanistan their troops can operate and the type of mission they can carry out.

The two-day meeting is also expected to back an extension of Nato’s programme of training and air transport for African Union peacekeepers in the war-ravaged Sudanese region of Darfur.

The AU mission was scheduled to wrap up at the end of September and be replaced by a stronger UN force, but Sudan’s leaders fiercely opposed the move and the AU agreed to stay on until at least the end of the year.

The force is being expanded from 7,000 to 11,000 in an effort to beef up its efforts to halt fighting that has killed at least 200,000 people and forced 2.5 million to flee their homes since 2003.