AFGHANISTAN - Sept. 17 - Larger Peace Force Call.

German Lt Gen Gotz Gliemeroth, head of the NATO-led ISAF peacekeeping force, urges NATO to expand the force. He says the debate about what mandate ISAF should work under is "an ideological consideration" and the peacekeeping operations must be urgently expanded, whether or not NATO decides to widen ISAF's mandate. He adds that the international community should deploy civil-military teams under the US-led coalition mandate if they could not do it under ISAF. "I think we all agree these things are rather urgent. If we dare to let things get static here then we almost have ruined the overall cause". (With regrouped Taliban forces leading a growing insurgency in southern Afghanistan, NATO is in the midst of discussions about how to expand the force. One option is to co-opt the network of so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams - units of 60-100 civilian and military officials deployed in four Afghan provinces under the US-led coalition's Operation Enduring Freedom. The teams have been billed as a way of allowing aid workers to operate in some of the more dangerous areas, but some aid agencies fear working with the military would compromise their neutrality. Others say the PRTs are not an answer to the security problem. Germany has said it would set up a PRT in the province of Konduz, but only under a UN mandate, which the US-led coalition lacks. The Germans would in effect take over the US-led PRT). Gen Gliemeroth says: "Some nations, like Germany, should reconsider the request (to operate) under expanded ISAF or not at all and stick to using the existing umbrella of Operation Enduring Freedom".