The UN Security Council has authorised the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan to send troops anywhere in the country rather than keep them confined to the capital, Kabul, and its environs.
A unanimous resolution approved yesterday expands the scope of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission so it could provide security across the central Asian nation, a change long sought by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the United Nations.
But the measure, which also renews the ISAF's UN mandate for another year, is likely to have little immediate impact as few countries are willing to commit troops at this time.
Washington was initially cool to the idea but changed its mind after NATO took the ISAF command on August 11th, US Ambassador John Negroponte said.
The first new troops in rural Afghanistan are expected to come from Germany, which has said it wants to send up to 450 soldiers to the northern district of Kunduz to form a Provincial Reconstruction Team - a group of aid workers under military protection.
Germany agreed to do so only if its soldiers were a part of the NATO mission and not the US force in Afghanistan of some 12,500 soldiers that is trying to track down al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the south.