Nato ministers agree to send more troops to Afghanistan
Nato defence ministers agreed on a major expansion of the alliance’s peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan today and will send troops into the western sector of the country.
Agreement came after Italy, Spain and Lithuania ended months of delay by committing to send hundreds of troops to support US forces under Nato command in the city of Heart and three other western Afghan cities.
“We have the resources. We need to expand,” Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after the meeting in Nice.
The western deployment marks a significant step in plans for Nato to extend its operation across the whole of Afghanistan by early 2006.
The plan calls for integrating the US-led combat force that invaded in the country in 2001 to topple the Taliban regime.
Washington has long backed an expanded Nato force that could free up US troops.
Nato military planners have struggled for months to find European nations willing to commit the troops needed to expand the 8,200-strong International Security Assistance Force into western Afghanistan.
