The decision comes as U.S. forces deployed in Afghanistan have intensified their fight against Taliban insurgents who have equally been increasing their attacks against foreign troops.

More than 100 soldiers died in June, the highest monthly death toll for the 9-year war. In one attack this week, four Americans were killed by a roadside bomb.

Such bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, have become the main weapon used against international and Afghan forces fighting to end an insurgency by Taliban elements.

The Jordan Times quoted Ashton Carter, the U.S. undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, as saying that the equipment being slated for delivery to U.S. forces in Afghanistan would "at least double" current counter-EID capacity. Carter conceded that American soldiers were effectively ill-equipped to counter the Taliban's mounting insurgency.

The number of improvised explosive devices in the country has risen relentlessly, up from about 50 a week during the summer of 2007. In the last week of June, military officials say they counted 300 crude bombs that either exploded or were spotted in their field of operation. In all, the crude bombs account for about two-thirds of NATO's troop fatalities.

Speaking to reporters in Kabul, Carter said the new equipment would be delivered "in the coming months." They are said to include tethered surveillance blimps, heavily armored vehicles and detection machinery such as robots and mine detectors.

In addition, as many as 1,000 counter-IED experts would be deployed, along with laboratory technicians, intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials.

The move is in line with a tender by the U.S. Army to modernize combat equipment, including a ground combat vehicle that is being developed in a bid to afford what the Pentagon has prescribed as "a high-survivable platform."

The modernization plan opts to use mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles while upgrading those currently in use, particularly the Stryker. It is the first vehicle that will be designed from the ground up to operate in an improvised explosive device environment.

"This is an enormous plug of extra effort," Carter was quoted saying, adding that the $3 billion worth of equipment would be shared with coalition and Afghan forces.

The crude bombs are made using vast supplies of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, much of it moved in from Pakistan.

Despite the United States' expanded efforts this summer to fight the Taliban, American forces are set to start withdrawing from the country next July.

earlier related report
US defense chief presses Senate on Afghan war funds
Washington (AFP) July 13, 2010 - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he pressed Republican senators during a lunchtime meeting Tuesday to help pass an embattled emergency spending measure to fund the Afghanistan troop "surge."

Emerging from the closed-door talks with the lawmakers, Gates told AFP he "absolutely" called on them to help approve legislation to pump another 37 billion dollars into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But he declined to give other details of the meeting, saying only that they had discussed "a range of military and defense issues."

With Democratic support for the war funding uncertain, the White House has courted Republican backing to pay for the president's plan to add some 30,000 more troops to the fight against Islamist fighters in Afghanistan.

The US House of Representatives approved the Afghan war funding July 1 only after beating back a stiff anti-war insurrection among the White House's Democratic allies and adding some 15 billion dollars in social spending.

But with November elections on the horizon, senate Republicans have said the war-funding bill should focus on military spending and warned they will oppose it unless congress removes the additional monies.

The House-passed spending bill also included nearly three billion in aid for Haiti in the wake of the devastating earthquake there, 701 million dollars of increased US-Mexico border security and 304 million dollars for the response to the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The White House had welcomed the House addition of education monies aimed at helping struggling states avoid teacher layoffs, but threatened a veto over 800 million dollars in cuts to pay for the bill.

earlier related report
NATO chief warns against weak support for Afghan campaign
London (AFP) July 13, 2010 - The Taliban will escalate their attacks on international forces in Afghanistan if Western political support weakens in the face of the increasingly fierce insurgency, the head of NATO warned Tuesday.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen also told the Daily Telegraph newspaper he could not give a date when forces would leave the war-torn nation and urged troop-contributing countries to keep soldiers there "as long as necessary".

His comments came after a meeting Monday in London with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who last week told lawmakers he hoped to see the country's troops return home within five years.

"We can have our hopes, we can have our expectations, but I cannot give any guarantee as far as an exact date or year is concerned," the NATO secretary general said.

"The Taliban follow the political debate in troop-contributing countries closely," he said.

"If they discover that through their attacks, they can weaken the support for our presence in Afghanistan, they will just be encouraged to step up their attacks on foreign troops."

NATO and the United States have more than 140,000 troops in Afghanistan with another 10,000 due in coming weeks as part of the counter-insurgency strategy.

Rasmussen further warned that an early departure from Afghanistan could see the Taliban return to power and destabilise its nuclear-armed neighbour, Pakistan.

If international forces left Afghanistan too soon, "the Taliban would return to Afghanistan and Afghanistan would once again become a safe haven for terrorist groups who would use it as a launch pad for terrorist attacks on North America and Europe," he said.

"There would also be a risk of destabilising a neighbouring country, Pakistan, a nuclear power."

Following the NATO chief's meeting with Cameron, his office said they had "agreed on the central importance" of the NATO mission to its members security.

"The prime minister made clear that success in Afghanistan was his government's highest foreign policy and national security priority," said a statement.

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