Dutch to send 330 troops to Afghanistan

AMSTERDAM, Oct 20 (Reuters) The Netherlands will send a total of 330 soldiers to southern Afghanistan in the coming weeks, boosting its presence there to 1,730 troops, the government said today.

Britain, Canada and the Netherlands are leading an expansion of NATO forces into the dangerous south of Afghanistan, where violence has surged in recent months.

''Earlier this year the security situation worsened and the presence of fewer Afghan security troops than expected puts a heavier burden on security and patrol capacity,'' the Defence Ministry said in a statement on its Web site.

It had earlier announced it would send 200 soldiers to Dutch headquarters in the southern province of Kandahar after the country takes command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force from November 1.

Today, the ministry said it would send an extra 130 troops, two platoons, to the mountainous province of Uruzgan.

NATO troops, led by British soldiers, have for weeks taken almost daily casualties as they push into the violent south of Afghanistan, a stronghold of Islamist guerrilla group Taliban.

The Taliban have regrouped since their ouster by U S forces in 2001 and this has been the bloodiest year since then, with more than 3,000 people, including about 150 foreign soldiers, killed in fighting.

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