WASHINGTON, July 13: A senior American senator urged the Bush administration on Sunday to send the troops withdrawn from Iraq to Afghanistan to help stop cross-border infiltration.

In an interview with CBS News, Senator Richard Lugar said he believed the need for US troops in Afghanistan was “intense”.

The White House said last week that it was discussing the possibility of withdrawing additional troops from Iraq where the situation seemed to have stabilised. The United States has already shifted an aircraft carrier from the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea to make it available for possible airstrikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt and Pakistan.

“The battles on the border with Pakistan, with the Al Qaeda forces assisted by the Taliban are a source of more killing of American troops right now than anything occurring in Iraq,” senator Lugar.

“As far as our troops are concerned, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, has indicated we need troops in Afghanistan,” Senator Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said. “But he has no troops to send to Afghanistan. So it is logical in the military sequence that we are going to move troops out of Iraq, not immediately perhaps to Afghanistan, but at least to relieve the strain, which is intense right now upon our armed forces.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin accused the administration of taking “its eye off the ball in Afghanistan” but also said that it was up to coalition partners to step up their efforts in the country.

The Michigan Democrat strongly supported pulling troops out of Iraq, arguing that “there is no other way to force the Iraqi government to work out those political settlements which are absolutely essential to end the conflict”.