WASHINGTON: Germany has emerged as the leading candidate to take command of the international security force in Afghanistan, a move that might also involve NATO in the Afghan recovery effort, according to US and European officials.

With Turkey’s six-month commitment to head the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) due to expire in December, the Bush administration has been scrambling to find a replacement. Germany’s willingness to fill the gap would have particular significance as a step toward mending the deep rift in US-German relations that has opened since Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder made opposition to a US attack on Iraq a central factor in his campaign for reelection.

The German government has reserved a final decision on taking over lead responsibility for the international force until after national elections in Germany on Sunday. But German Defence Minister Peter Struck, visiting Afghanistan in late July, said he could imagine his country assuming command, and German authorities have affirmed their readiness in private talks with US and European officials.

Germany has played a major role in the force already, providing nearly 1,300 troops out of a total contingent of about 5,000. In addition to performing guard duty and patrolling, the Germans have handled training of a new Afghan police force.

As another possibility, US officials have looked at creating some kind of joint leadership arrangement for the international force, teaming several smaller NATO countries such as the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark. But the preference is for a single, larger European state to run the force, officials said.

US officials expect that a larger role for Germany in Afghanistan would be conditioned on the active involvement of NATO’s military structure, both to assist in military planning and to generate additional forces from NATO member and partnership countries.

NATO support is viewed as particularly important in ensuring a longer-term commitment by the next head of the international force. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other administration officials have made clear their interest in seeing what has been a six-month commitment extended to 12 or 18 months to provide greater stability.

Lingering difficulties in reining in warlords, bandits and renegade Taliban fighters have complicated rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan and have put pressure on the Bush administration to allow expansion of the international force beyond Kabul, where its operations are now confined. US officials have sounded more willing in recent weeks to consider enlarging the force but have insisted the focus be first on resolving the leadership issue.

NATO has avoided a formal political commitment to involvement in Afghanistan, reflecting both an initial US desire to strike on its own against the Taliban regime and Al Qaeda terrorist network and a NATO reluctance to get involved in operations out of its traditional area of European focus.

Several NATO countries in addition to Germany have sent troops as peacekeepers and to help track down remaining Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. But the fact that the major battles in the country have been waged by US and British forces has underscored how NATO as an institution has remained a marginal player in the ‘war on terror’.

Growing US concern about NATO’s inability or unwillingness to deal with conflicts other than an invasion of Europe, for which the alliance was originally constituted when the Soviet Union existed, has prompted the administration to draft a plan for the creation of a new NATO rapid reaction force. Rumsfeld plans to lobby for the idea at a meeting in Warsaw next week with NATO defence ministers.—Dawn/The LAT-W.P News Service (c) The Washington Post.