500 more British troops for Afstan announced--with maybes

Further to 2) here, one wonders how strict Prime Minister Brown will be about the conditions; interesting stuff about the Americans:

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Gordon Brown says the UK will send 500 more forces personnel to Afghanistan - but only if key conditions are met.

They will be sent as long as they have the necessary equipment, if other Nato allies boost their troop numbers and more Afghan soldiers are trained.

There are currently about 9,000 UK personnel in Afghanistan. Some 221 have been killed there since 2001.

The US could next week announce it is sending up to 45,000 extra servicemen and women, the BBC's Newsnight reports.

The programme says the Obama administration has already told the UK government it will soon announce a substantial increase to its military forces in Afghanistan.

It understands an announcement could come next week, in time for a Nato defence ministers meeting in Bratislava, although there has been no official confirmation from Washington.

As well as the 9,000 UK personnel, there are 150 reserve troops in the country which the Ministry of Defence said would be available for further temporary deployments.

Military chiefs welcomed the UK troop reinforcement, insisting their requests had been fully met but opposition parties said more details about the timing of the deployment were needed...

Maybe this and a little bit more will be all Mr Brown needs (though Georgia is not, er, in NATO):

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Georgia is planning to send a battalion of 1,000 troops to volatile Helmand province [emphasis added] in southern Afghanistan in the spring, while smaller nations like Macedonia plan to send a few dozen soldiers each. Still, the Afghan war is increasingly the province of the U.S. and a core group of allies, including England and Canada [well,...].

Separately, Japan said it will end its naval refueling mission in support of U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan in January...