[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
KABUL, 12 December (IRIN) - Kabul has welcomed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) decision on Friday to expand its peacekeeping mission, saying it would boost security in the post-conflict country.
NATO foreign ministers approved mission rules last week for an expanded Afghan peacekeeping force for 2006, which Washington hopes will allow it to reduce US troop levels in the country. The agreement makes NATO's Afghanistan mission its biggest ever operation outside Europe.
"The people of Afghanistan thank them [NATO] for their contribution to security and reconstruction," President Hamid Karzai told reporters at the presidential palace on Monday. Afghanistan lacked the resources and its forces were not equipped to maintain security itself, Karzai noted.
The agreement leaves the most dangerous counter-insurgency work in the hands of the 20,000-strong US-led coalition force, but gives NATO more scope to help Afghan forces with training and other tasks, such as disarming illegal groups.
"NATO's troop deployment would enhance the working abilities of our security forces for maintaining peace across the country," Navid Ahmad Moez, spokesman for the foreign ministry said, adding the decision showed how strong the commitment of the international community to lasting peace in the post-conflict country actually was.
NATO wants to raise its 9,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to about 15,000 from early next year. It will deploy its forces to new bases in the north and west and to the more restive south, as well as maintaining a strong presence in the capital.
Britain, Canada and the Netherlands will lead the expansion of the alliance's forces to the south of Afghanistan but more troop contributions will be needed before the full plan can be implemented.
Nearly 60 US soldiers have been killed in the Taliban-led insurgency this year, most of them in the south and east where the militants are most active.
ISAF peacekeepers have also been attacked and four of them were killed in violence this year, including a German soldier who lost his life in November when a suicide bomber rammed his car into an ISAF convoy in Kabul.
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