"French President Jacques Chirac has decided to deploy special forces in Afghanistan in the war against terrorism," General Bernard Thorette told reporters after a three-day official visit.

"They have performed the reconnaissance and are to be deployed in coming weeks," he added, refusing to elaborate on the nature or location of the mission.

Following a meeting with his US counterpart George W. Bush, Chirac announced June 2 that French special forces would shortly be operating in Afghanistan alongside US troops.

A US-led coalition force of 11,500 troops is currently hunting down Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

France has contributed around 500 troops to the peacekeeping International Security Assistance Force in Kabul since December 2001 when the force was established under a United Nations mandate after the toppling of the Taliban.

Some 50 French military instructors are working with US and British troops to train recruits for the nascent Afghan national army.

Thorette met with Afghan military chiefs and accompanied a French ISAF patrol north of Kabul on the Shomali plain while in Afghanistan.

"We have deployed nearly a battalion (around 500 soldiers) with ISAF," the general said. "This is a burden for the French army but we have no intention of changing it."

Questioned on the US-led civil-military programme known as provincial reconstruction teams (PRT), Thorette stressed that France had not decided whether to take part.

Three PRTs have been established and more are planned in the provinces where they are intended to help improve security and reconstruction work in the war-ravaged country.

Britain is expected to open a PRT in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif next month and a decision is expected shortly by Germany as to whether it will start one in the western city of Herat.

WAR.WIRE