US President George W. Bush plans to urge Nato members to send more troops to contain increasing violence in Afghanistan and remove restrictions on soldiers already there, US officials said last night.
Mr Bush travels next week to the Nato summit in Riga, Latvia, where the rising Taliban insurgency was expected to be a top issue.
US troops returning home from Afghanistan at Fort Campbell army base in Kentucky
Nato has about 31,000 soldiers in Afghanistan but some member nations have placed restrictions on what they may do, upsetting the United States, Britain and Canada, who complain their soldiers are doing most of the fighting in places like violent southern Afghanistan.
"If Nato is to be successful and to continue to complete this mission, obviously it will need enough troops and the right kinds of troops to be able to do the mission and it will need troops in the right places," said Judy Ansley, an official with the White House National Security Council.
"You can expect that there will be a discussion about the need for some flexibility in where troops are, for an increase in the number of troops, maybe a decrease in some of the restrictions on troops that are currently there," she added.
Fighting in Afghanistan this year has been the worst since US and British-led forces ousted the Taliban five years ago.
Nato's top commander said in October the alliance did not have enough soldiers in Afghanistan to secure a victory over Taliban fighters in the coming months. In the short-term, Nato is looking for another 1,500 soldiers. The US has 23,000 troops in Afghanistan.