Germany eyes sending Tornado planes to Afghan south

BRUSSELS, Jan 12 (Reuters) Germany, under pressure to offer more help to NATO forces in violent south Afghanistan, will decide soon whether to send Tornado aircraft to the region for reconnaissance duties, its foreign minister said today.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier denied earlier remarks by a top official in Germany's coalition government that the decision had already been taken, which had prompted criticism from coalition allies and rivals alike who insisted parliament be consulted.

''We shall study this request and take a decision in good time,'' Steinmeier told reporters in Brussels, adding that he would discuss a NATO request made in December for reconnaissance planes at an alliance meeting due on January 26.

Steinmeier's party ally Peter Struck, parliamentary chief of the Social Democrats who share power in Berlin with Chancellor Angela Merkel, earlier said the aircraft would be deployed.

He said they would be based in the capital Kabul but used in the south of the country, heartland of Taliban insurgents who surprised NATO last year with fiercer than expected resistance.

His comments provoked anger in Berlin and Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats voiced doubts over whether such a move was possible without a new parliamentary mandate in addition to that governing Germany's existing presence of some 3,000 troops in the calmer north.

The ecologist Greens said they would consider launching a complaint with Germany's Federal Constitutional Court if the government went ahead with the deployment without parliament.

Britain, Canada and the Netherlands led the NATO push south in mid-2006 and have borne the brunt of casualities in the fight between the 32,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and the Taliban.

Germany agreed with other NATO allies at a summit in November to deploy to the south and other troublespots in emergencies.

NATO asked in December for Germany to supply six Tornado jets, whose maintenance and operation would require about 250 additional personnel. It was not clear how many such planes Germany was considering sending.

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