Poland to send first troops to Afghanistan this week

WARSAW, Sep 19 (Reuters) Poland will deploy the first wave of a promised new contingent of NATO soldiers to Afghanistan this week, earlier than previously announced, a military official said today.

Poland, responding to an NATO call for reinforcements, said last week it would send 1,000 additional troops to Afghanistan but said they would not be on the ground until next February.

Alliance sources said NATO would try to persuade Poland to send troops earlier to help quell the heaviest bout of violence in Afghanistan since US-led forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

The decision to send more Polish troops has increased tensions within the ruling coalition.

General Lech Konopka, deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, said because of the situation in Afghanistan, some soldiers would be deployed this week and added to a contingent of some 100 Polish troops already on the ground.

''We will send some 70 soldiers this week and could send more in the last 10 days of the this month,'' Konopka told Reuters, adding the idea was to gradually increase the number of soldiers to reach the full deployment of 1,000 by February.

He said it was unclear whether some of the soldiers would go to the southern provinces, where NATO is battling Taliban insurgents.

A Romanian official said earlier that Romania would also send 200 troops to southern Afghanistan next month.

A NATO official in Brussels said they had no official confirmation of either Poland's or Romania's plans but added that the alliance needed reinforcements before February.

''We would welcome any deployment as soon as possible,'' the official said.

COALITION THREATENED The leftist Self-Defence, a junior coalition party, at odds with ruling Law and Justice over next year's budget, argues the money being spent on the deployment would be better spent elsewhere. The party has threatened to quit the coalition and trigger early elections.

Defence Minister Radoslaw Sikorski defended the decision to send more troops, saying Poland had an obligation to support NATO allies.

''The Afghanistan mission is special ... The United States, our ally, was hit from there,'' he told reporters in Krakow. ''We cannot turn away when we are asked to help.'' REUTERS PR PM2053