In taking command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the Afghan capital Monday, the military alliance ventured out of Europe for the first time in its 54-year history.

Keen to show it still has a role to play after the demise of the Soviet threat, the 19-nation NATO alliance is seeking to reinvent itself as a frontline member of the war against terrorism.

"NATO's leadership of ISAF demonstrates that the revitalisation of the NATO alliance that began after September 11, 2002 is becoming reality in Afghanistan," according to US ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns.

"The ISAF operation is an expression of our new emphasis on confronting global terrorism and the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction," he wrote in Monday's Wall Street Journal.

Since a summit in the Czech capital Prague in November, NATO has been busily recasting its responsibilities to encompass peacekeeping as well as its traditional emphasis on the defence of its member states.

A role in Iraq for the alliance, which earned its spurs in the 1999 campaign to dislodge Serb forces from the province of Kosovo, is not yet formally on the agenda.

But the question is likely to becoming "pressing" in the autumn, diplomats agree.

A decision to send NATO into Iraq would be quite a turnaround from February, when the US-led drive to topple Saddam Hussein sparked the worst crisis in the alliance's history.

France, Germany and Belgium fought for weeks to limit the alliance's role in the run-up to the war in Iraq, part of a wider campaign of opposition to the US-British plans waged at the United Nations.

But the tone has changed since the war ended just over three months ago. Paris and Berlin have signalled they are ready to countenance a NATO role in Iraq -- but only with a clear UN mandate.

In a weekend newspaper interview, German Defence Minister Peter Struck said provided UN backing was won, Germany would "not have a reason to oppose an engagement of the alliance in Iraq".

But for now the question is "theoretical", he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

The United States, worried about the costs in terms of both money and soldiers' lives from its presence in Iraq, is preparing to return to the UN for a new resolution on how to rebuild the country.

US President George W. Bush said Friday "we are working hard to bring other nations to bear responsibility in Iraq".

The Republican-controlled Senate called last month on the White House to ask NATO to intervene in Iraq.

So far, the alliance's role has been confined to helping logistically in Poland's preparations to assume command next month of a multinational division numbering 9,000 troops in southern Iraq.

When it took the decision to help the Poles on June 3, NATO was at pains to stress the move did not mean the alliance would necessarily take up a more formal role in Iraq.

"There is no unwillingness to face up to the issue, and I think some people have not yet caught onto the fact that we have already got that involvement in Iraq," NATO secretary-general George Robertson said last month.

"We want to make a success of that, and after that it may well be that some of the nations would want to do more. But I think we should focus on making a success of what we're doing at the moment," he said.

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