By Ben Hall and Jimmy Burns
Tony Blair is preparing to send up to 2,000 troops to Afghanistan next year when Britain takes over control of the Nato peacekeeping mission in the country.
The Ministry of Defence yesterday confirmed that plans were being made for a deployment in the spring but said a final announcement was unlikely before the autumn.
The Conservatives pressed the government to provide further details of the size and nature of the force and requested assurances that the deployment would not affect UK counter-insurgency efforts in Iraq.
The MoD dismissed as "speculation" reports that as many as 5,000 troops would be sent to the south of Afghanistan, one of the main areas for opium cultivation and a frontline in the fight against insurgents linked to the former Taliban regime.
A British official said no firm decision had been taken beyond deploying the headquarters of the British-led Allied Rapid Reaction Force. But the MoD is looking at a force of between 1,500 and 2,000 troops.
The final figure will depend on their location, the extent of their responsibilities in backing up local security forces and whether they need communications support if spread across inhospitable territory. The UK already has 500 troops attached to the international force in Afghanistan.
The MoD denied the Afghan deployment was linked to troop levels in Iraq. But it is bound to raise concerns about over-stretching the armed forces and the cost of foreign operations.
Defence and drug experts are warning that the deployment risks drawing British troops into areas where the risk of armed engagement and casualties are high.
"There is I think a danger of 'mission creep' at a time when the insurgency is far from vanquished, and in areas where local Afghan commanders linked to the Taliban and powerful figures have vested interests in the drugs trade," Colonel Christopher Langton, an expert on the region, warned at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
According to Whitehall sources, the deployment of extra troops to Afghanistan will cost between £300m and £700m over a three-year period, depending on the size of the overall military operation.
The funding required could mean the MoD drawing on a special reserve from the Treasury which is above the £400m for overseas deployments set aside for 2005/06.
A Treasury spokesman last night refused to comment on the funding for an Afghan deployment Defence experts believe an extra 2,000 troops is the maximum the MoD can deploy without eating into its own budget for troops in Iraq, Northern Ireland or affecting contingency plans for the international force in Kosovo.
