AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
KABUL: France is likely to send a couple hundred more troops to Afghanistan next year, French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said here Sunday.
“It is likely that we will reinforce our men by a couple hundred,” Alliot-Marie told a media briefing in the capital Kabul. The expansion would occur between now and mid-2006, she said.
France has about 800 soldiers in Afghanistan, including 600 in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) of peacekeepers that works mainly in Kabul and in the north and west of the country.
Another 35 are working with the fledgling Afghan army and 160 special forces troops are with the US-led coalition hunting down Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other militants in the insurgency-hit south and east.
France would need extra troops as its takes command with Turkey and possibly Italy of the ISAF operation in Kabul, Alliot-Marie said. It was also preparing to increase its work with Afghan army officers.
The French deployment will not be part of the expansion southwards next year of the 9,500-strong ISAF force, for which NATO nations approved this month an extra 6,000 troops.
