Berlin has also faced sustained pressure from its NATO allies to step up Germany's troop presence in Afghanistan and deploy soldiers in the south to help US, British and Canadian forces fight a tenacious Taliban insurgency.

But Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said the reinforcements would shore up reconstruction efforts in the more stable north, which along with Kabul is where most of Germany's 3,500 soldiers in Afghanistan are deployed.

The decision comes as Germany prepares to take responsibility for NATO's quick reaction force in the north in July, but the ministry has also come under pressure from German commanders demanding more men after a string of attacks on soldiers and their Afghan helpers.

Jung told a press conference that extending the army's mandate to allow it to contribute up to 4,500 troops to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), would give the German contingent "a little more flexibility" without necessarily deploying the maximum number of soldiers.

The Bundeswehr's current parliamentary mandate expires in mid-October.

Any extension has to be approved by MPs and Jung said he would ask the legislature to prolong the ISAF mandate until December 2009.

Though the mission is unpopular with the public, Jung is expected to get a new mandate with ease as only the radical opposition party The Left are likely to vote against it.

He said his ministry also plans to lower the maximum number of troops it can contribute to the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom from 1,400 to 800 when parliament reviews this mandate in autumn.

It currently provides for the deployment of up to 100 elite German troops in southern Afghanistan for limited periods and has seen some 250 German soldiers deployed in related operations in the Horn of Africa and the Mediterranean.

The head of parliament's defence committee, Reinhold Robbe, welcomed the announcement, saying there was currently a shortfall of some 300 to 400 troops in the north.

But Jung was criticised by the opposition Free Democrats for showing a "lack of courage" in tackling the challenges posed by the situation in Afghanistan after an insurgency aimed at toppling the US-backed government in Kabul gained pace over the past two years.

In April, the German army's chief had called for the deployment of more troops in northern Afghanistan to cope with a deteriorating security situation in this region.

Wolfgang Schneiderhan told Focus magazine that German operations in the north were strained to the limit.

"That takes away flexibility for me to react quickly to any worsening in the situation. I will argue this when the extension of the mandate comes up for discussion in the autumn," he said.

A German NATO general, Egon Ramms, at the weekend said the alliance needed up to 6,000 more soldiers "very soon" to stabilise Afghanistan and speed up the training of the local security forces.

ISAF currently counts 53,000 soldiers from 40 nations, a steady increase from 33,000 a year and a half ago.

Berlin is the third biggest contributor of foreign troops in the country, but sending German troops into conflict zones remains a vexed subject six decades after World War II.

Surveys have shown that the public massively oppose deploying troops in southern Afghanistan and that more than half of Germans want the government to bring home its soldiers from the conflict-torn country.

Since 2002, 26 German troops have died in Afghanistan.

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