Poland will accelerate the deployment of its troops to Afghanistan and supply most of the reinforcements NATO needs to tackle the insurgency in the volatile south, a NATO spokesman said Tuesday.
"It is for Poland to time the deployment," the spokesman said, but he added "the initial elements of that battalion will be going in relatively soon and will continue to flow into the country until early next year."
Polish leaders pledged earlier this month to boost the country's contribution to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan from 120 troops to about 1,000 by next February.
That pledge came after NATO military commander General James Jones urged the military alliance's 26 members to find some 2,000 extra personnel to confront the insurgency, led by fighters from the Taliban, once in power in Kabul.
ISAF is on a twin-track mission to spread the influence of President Hamid Karzai's weak central government by providing security and fostering reconstruction.
Ideally the reserve force would comprise a battalion of between 500 and 700 combat troops plus attack helicopters and reconnaissance staff, probably from other countries, whose logistical backing would involve around 1,500 personnel.
The NATO spokesman, James Appathurai, could not say exactly how many troops Poland would send but he noted that Warsaw has agreed to lift its "caveats", or restrictions, on the use of its contingent.
"The Polish government has agreed this battalion can be used in an un-caveat way, and of course without geographical restrictions and can be used where necessary by the commander as a reserve," he told reporters, adding that it "goes a significant way to meeting the requirements that SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe) has put forward."
A NATO diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that "the first officer already left about 10 days ago. Two hundred Polish soldiers left at the same time for Lebanon, Kosovo and Afghanistan."
In Warsaw, a defence ministry spokesman was more circumspect, saying that "final decisions have not been taken. Consultations are ongoing."
But he acknowledged that "efforts have been made to accelerate the deployment of troops, within the general framework of principles that have already been defined."
In its most ambitious ground operation ever, NATO took control in late July of international forces in volatile southern Afghanistan.
But the Taliban, ousted by the US-led military coalition in late 2001 for harbouring Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has shown surprising resistance, backed by allies among drug runners and fighters loyal to local warlords.
More than 100 foreign soldiers have been killed in hostile action in Afghanistan this year, about half of them US troops, and few countries offered reinforcements for operations in the south.
The Polish government's offer of troops has caused it headaches at home.
Last week, Poland's lower house of parliament began a debate on the pledge by Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski to increase by nearly tenfold the country's troop contributions in Afghanistan.
Sikorski told the lawmakers that Poland's credibility in NATO was at stake.
"If we want NATO to invest in our security, our army cannot remain in barracks while NATO is battling dangerous fanatics," he said, noting that the alliance has invested some 500 million euros (634 million dollars) in Poland's defense infrastructure.
Afghanistan, and in particular the issue of reinforcements, is set to dominate informal talks uniting US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with his NATO counterparts in Slovenia starting on Thursday.