Reuters
12/14/2004
By
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ROME - Italy is ready to help expand NATO's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan and plans to take command of a new security unit in the west of the country, Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said on Tuesday.

NATO is looking to create so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) to protect aid and rebuilding projects in the restive west.

"We are preparing to take the lead of a Provincial Reconstruction Team in the western province of Herat, to improve coordination of development projects in the entire west of the country," Fini told a parliamentary commission.

Italy has some 510 troops based in the Afghan capital Kabul. Fini did not say how many more soldiers would be needed for the PRT project.

NATO's 9,000-strong multinational ISAF force operates in the capital Kabul and the north. It works alongside the 20,000-strong U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom which is fighting Taliban remnants in the south of the country.

NATO is hoping to begin its westward expansion by the time of parliamentary elections due in April.

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