US President Barack Obama has announced he will send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to end the war against the Taliban but pledged to start a pullout in July 2011. The new deployment will bring US troop strength in the country to 100,000.

The US president unveiled his new fast-track war strategy in a much-awaited speech after three months of deliberations, including ten top-level meetings with advisers. The nationally televised speech was delivered to cadets at the West Point military academy in New York.

Stressing that the US was in Afghanistan because of the 9/11 attacks, Mr Obama said it was in the national interest of the US to increase troop strength "to disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He added that the new plan would not signal a war without end and rejected a comparison with Vietnam.

The US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, welcomed the strategy, saying it gave him a clear "military mission" and the resources to carry out their task.

Mr Obama also increased pressure on NATO allies to send extra reinforcements to Afghanistan, saying they were also threatened by Afghan-based terrorism. NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen reacted positively to the strategy and said he was confident an extra 5000 troops could be found.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy offered his support to the strategy, calling it "courageous" but France had earlier ruled out deploying more combat soldiers to Afghanistan. Germany said it would wait until after a conference on Afghanistan in London next January before making any commitments on increasing troops numbers. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed the US troops surge and called on NATO allies to unite behind the US.

US President Barack Obama by ANP