The plan, whose final approval at the Pentagon is still pending, was disclosed to members of Congress amid growing concern that Bosnia may become a "safe haven" for al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic militant groups that could use it as a base for operations in Europe and elsewhere.

Major General James Darden, a senior representative of the US European Command, told the House Armed Services Committee the military was examining "the usefulness of maintaining a small US presence at Eagle Base" outside the Bosnian town of Tuzla after NATO forces pull out of the country and hand over their security operations to a European Union force.

"What we would like to do is have it so that we can surge up to a battalion, if they were required," Darden noted.

He said the current blueprint called for stationing at the base about 150 US troops equipped with helicopters and thus making it usable as a jumping-off point for larger operations.

Eagle Base could be shared by the United States with its EU partners when they take control of the operation, Darden said.

"This is part of the Headquarters European Command strategy, for the continued security cooperation activities in the region," he pointed out.

A NATO summit held in Istanbul last month decided to wrap up a nine-year-old NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, while EU foreign ministers agreed earlier Monday to deploy there a 7,000-strong force that would be headed up by a British officer.

The United States still has about 1,400 troops in the country, with about 850 of them deployed at Eagle Base, officials said. But their numbers will be drawn down soon.

Eagle was the first permanent military base created by US forces that crossed the Sava River into Bosnia in 1996 in an effort to restore peace to the war-torn country in line with the Dayton accords.

A former Yugoslav air base, it was modernized and improved by the Pentagon over the years to be able to handle large troop contingents and military supplies.

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