Nato's Afghan Force Needs Help, Says Rice

The Nato alliance is facing a real test in Afghanistan and needs help from a more effective Afghan army as well as bigger troop contributions from European members of Nato, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said yesterday after meetings with Gordon Brown and David Miliband in London.

Rice said she would tell the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, that there had to be a more effective Afghan military response to the Taliban threat.

In a rare piece of good news, there were suggestions that the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, would provide an extra 1,000 troops.

British officials hope the extra troops will be stationed in areas of the bloodiest conflict in Kandahar in the south, but Nato defense chiefs will discuss the position at an informal summit starting today. Nato is seeking to draw together a new three-year structural plan for the country.

Rice and Brown also discussed the possibility of the Norwegian diplomat Kay Eide becoming the new proposed UN envoy to Afghanistan. Karzai had vetoed the original US-UK choice of Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader. A Turkish diplomat is also being considered, but the British do not expect another Briton, Major General John McColl, to be appointed, even though he has been recommended by Karzai.

Speaking after meeting Miliband, Rice did not disguise her concern at the scale of the threat in Afghanistan. "I do think the alliance is facing a real test here. Our populations need to understand this is not a peacekeeping mission" but rather a long-term fight against extremists, she added. "This is a different fight from what Nato was structured to do."

She also warned that the Taliban insurgency's terror tactics were creating havoc for the Afghan people. The US defense secretary, Robert Gates, expressed his country's frustration even more bluntly, saying he had yet to receive any replies from a letter he has sent to all defense ministers in Nato asking them to contribute more troops and equipment.

"I worry a great deal about the alliance evolving into a two-tiered alliance, in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect people's security, and others who are not," Gates said during a Senate hearing on Pentagon spending plans. "And I think that it puts a cloud over the future of the alliance, if this is to endure and perhaps even get worse. There are allies that are doing their part and are doing well," he said. "The Canadians, the British, the Australians, the Dutch, the Danes are really out there on the line and fighting, but there are a number of others that are not."

Canada has threatened to pull out unless other allies do more of the hard work. The Germans have belatedly offered to contribute an extra 200 combat troops to replace a Norwegian unit that leaves in the summer, but there is no promise to put these forces into the dangerous south.

Speaking in the Commons, Brown said: "We need a proper burden-sharing - not only in terms of personnel, but also helicopters and other equipment."

Rice, speaking on the plane on the way to London, highlighted the lack of Afghan fighting and policing capacity. She said: "I think that we would like to see the Afghans becoming more capable with both their army and their police forces of holding the territory that is being cleared of both Taliban and in some cases foreign fighters like al-Qaida.

"And frankly, I think one thing that people are taking a look at ... is whether or not the Afghan security forces - the magnitude, the numbers of Afghan security forces that were once anticipated - is going to be enough for the task."

The US contributes a third of Nato's 42,000-strong International Security Assistance Force mission, making it the largest participant, on top of the 12,000 American troops operating independently. The US plans to send an extra 3,200 marines to Afghanistan this spring, including 2,200 combat troops to help the Nato-led force in the south.