At the request of Washington the British government said it will immediately send troops from the 45 Royal Marine Commando who are trained in mountain warfare to join U.S. and Canadian troops operating under U.S. command in Afghanistan.

"These troops are being deployed to take part in warfighting operations," said Geoffrey Hoon, defense secretary in the Labour government in London of the biggest British deployment since the Persian Gulf War in 1991. "We will be asking them to risk their lives," he said. "They may suffer casualties."

The troops will be stationed at the Bagram airbase, located north of Kabul, the former base of Soviet forces during Moscow's occupation of the country in the 1980s. Describing how U.S. forces are preparing for the long haul, John Burns wrote in the New York Times that "heavy equipment was at work around Bagram, an old Soviet base, erecting steel frames and building earth-filled security barriers. American heavy-lift transport jets arrive almost by the hour. At times as many as 50 helicopters, including troop-carrying Chinooks and Apache, Cobra and Black Hawk attack craft, have been visible on the taxiways."

During a stopover in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, U.S. vice president Richard Cheney said Washington will give the Turkish government $228 million to take over command of the international occupation force of nearly 5,000 troops that has been patrolling Kabul since December to protect the figurehead regime of Hamid Karzai. The force has until now been run by the British military, which comprises the bulk of the troops that currently make it up.

Cheney said the force will be limited to Kabul and reiterated Washington's support for Turkey's entry into the European Union as further inducements for Ankara to commit a large number of soldiers and command the forces in Kabul. A German colonel will be second in command.

It later turned out that the funds amount to $28 million in direct aid from Washington and $200 million in debt forgiveness.  
 
 
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