The United States urged its allies on Monday to speed up an expansion of Nato's peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan as signs emerged of a surge in guerrilla activity, even in the capital, Kabul.
The 26 ambassadors of the Nato alliance landed in Kabul for talks with President Hamid Karzai who told them he wanted security backup for voter registration ahead of September elections to start right away.
US Ambassador to Nato Nicholas Burns named Spain and Turkey as nations that could do more to strengthen Nato's mission in Afghanistan because - unlike other allies - their military forces were not tied up in Iraq.
"Nato needs to go faster and accelerate its build-up of troops in Afghanistan," he told reporters.
He said Spain and Turkey, along with Germany and seven other allies, which do not have forces in Iraq, had "excess troop capacity" and could help solve resource problems that have hampered the alliance's plans to expand beyond Kabul.
A recent wave of violence in the south and east underlined the security concerns.
"I think we're seeing the beginnings, a good bit later than we expected...here in the last two weeks of some degree of spring surge by the enemy forces," said the top US commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General David Barno.
That offensive has spread into Kabul, said Lieutenant-General Rick Hillier, commander of the Nato-led peacekeepers in Afghanistan, after the arrest of more than 20 militants with explosives in the capital last week.
"We have a significant number of groups in or coming in to Kabul with explosives and with specific missions to target groups, including us," Hillier told reporters.
Diplomats said the ambassadors had asked Karzai for a date at which Nato should begin providing security backup for the election process. "Now," one quoted Karzai as saying.
The alliance has agreed to set up and take command of five new teams, which carry out small reconstruction projects or provide security for aid workers, in the north and west by the end of June.
Spain's new government had sought to balance its Iraq pullout - which US President George W. Bush complained was "abrupt" - by saying it was willing to provide troops in Afghanistan, but so far it has made no concrete offer.
Turkey, which has one of the largest military forces in the 26-nation defence alliance, has declined to join the coalition trying to restore stability in post-war Iraq.
Nato Deputy Secretary-General Alessandro Minuto Rizzo declined to say how many troops the five teams would require but said more would be known in a few weeks.
The reluctance of the allies to offer resources for Afghanistan has dogged the credibility of Nato's first mission outside Europe or America in its 55-year history, but Burns said it had to be the top priority because the stakes were so high.
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