"We are currently at about 85 percent of the requirements and want the remainder," he told reporters.

"As we progress through our deployment into the southern region, we have discovered that the resistance from opposing militant forces has been more intense than we had anticipated.

"Because of the importance of succeeding in Afghanistan, in particular of succeeding in this resistance in the south, the commander of ISAF has reassessed the capability requirements and a recommendation has been made" to boost the number of men in Afghanistan, Henault said.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which took over military command of southern Afghanistan on July 31 from the US-led coalition that toppled the Taliban regime in 2001, last week launched a major offensive in southern Afghanistan, aimed at quelling a revived insurgency.

In the past 24 hours, ISAF has killed more than 60 insurgents in the south and some 360 in the seven days since launching Operation Medusa in the southern province of Kandahar.

"Our collective assessment is that we are satisfied with the military-related progress today, particularly in the north and in the west, but less so in the south," Henault said.

He described Afghanistan as "the most complex mission NATO has ever undertaken" and one that was intensely demanding from a security and physical environment perspective.

The general said he would relay the urgency of the military chiefs' recommendations to the North Atlantic council on Monday.

"The decision as to how many troops will be deployed will be made by the political body of NATO," he stressed.

Reflecting the urgency of the issue, a new meeting has been called for next week to "address the existing shortfall in ISAF", Colonel Brett Boudreau, spokesman for the military committee, told AFP after the conference in Warsaw had ended on Saturday evening.

"The chiefs of defence have agreed to hold a force generation conference on Wednesday in Mons, Belgium," Boudreau said.

"At the conference next week, we will try to build up to as close to 100 percent as we can get. It's hoped that nations will put offers on the table, but the final decision on how many troops to send and when is a political one," he stressed.

ISAF, which has around 10,000 mainly British, Canadian and Dutch troops in the south, has come under regular attack from Taliban-linked groups, particularly in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

Five Canadian soldiers have been killed, one in a friendly fire incident, since the start of Operation Medusa, and 14 British airmen died on the first day of the operation when their reconnaissance plane crashed.

Militants on Friday attacked a border post in the eastern province of Khost, and torched 10 trucks supplying a US base in a separate attack in northeastern Nuristan province.

And in Kabul on Friday, 16 people, including two US soldiers, were killed in the worst suicide attack in the Afghan capital since the Taliban were ousted.

But Boudreau stressed that the call for more manpower and tools on the ground was not a distress signal.

"Speaking of 'reinforcements' is misleading...," Boudreau said. "It sounds like we need to call in the cavalry because things are going badly. That's not the case."

"Several months ago, we said in order to do this mission, we had to fulfill certain requirements. What we will ask for next week is not more than what was agreed to then."

As the defence chiefs met in Warsaw Saturday, Afghanistan marked the fifth anniversary of the assassination of anti-Taliban hero Ahmed Shah Massoud.

Massoud was assassinated on September 9, 2001, when suicide attackers believed to be from Al-Qaeda detonated a bomb-filled television camera while pretending to interview him.

The September 11 attacks on the United States occurred two days later.

NATO Troops Kill About 60 Insurgents In Afghanistan

NATO-led troops in a major offensive in southern Afghanistan have killed about 60 insurgents in the past 24 hours, officials said. The offensive, Medusa, has used air power, artillery and ground troops. It was launched a week ago to drive militants out of a stronghold in Kandahar.

"Later in the morning ISAF lost one soldier killed in action," the alliance said in a statement.

Afghan and NATO forces also destroyed "three insurgent positions, a bomb-making factory and a weapons cache," the statement said.

"We are engaging with everything from direct fire to artillery and air strikes," an official with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said, announcing the latest deaths.

The number of militants killed in Operation Medusa has now risen to more than 360. Five Canadian soldiers have also been killed, one by accident in friendly fire.

Fourteen British airmen died on the first day of the operation when their reconnaissance plane crashed in the Panjwayi area due to a technical fault.

Meanwhile police in Qalat, the capital city of restive Zabul province, said they had foiled an attempt to detonate a car bomb by seizing the vehicle.

Police received intelligence reports that a suicide car bomb attacker was planning to target Afghan or foreign troop on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, Zabul police chief Noor Mohammad Pakteen told AFP.

The information led police to the vehicle.

"We found the explosives-laden vehicle close to Qalat, the suicide attacker managed to flee, police defused the car bomb and are looking for the attacker," Pakteen said.

Much of Afghanistan's Taliban-linked violence is in the south, the heartland of the movement and where ISAF took command of 10,000 mainly British, Canadian and Dutch troops on July 31.

The Taliban have waged a growing campaign this year against foreign and Afghan troops. The militants' regime was toppled from power in late 2001 by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The group claimed responsibility for a suicide blast in the capital Kabul Friday that killed two US soldiers and 14 Afghans. It was the deadliest suicide attack in the city for years.

The militants also attacked a border post in the eastern province of Khost late Friday.

One Taliban body was left at the site after an hour-long battle but blood-stained turbans and Afghan caps, called "pakols", littered the site, indicating the militants had suffered several casualties, a border police commander said.

Three police were wounded in the battle, health officials said.

In the northeastern province of Nuristan, also on the border with Pakistan, 10 trucks supplying a US base were torched by men who appeared to belong to the Taliban, witnesses told AFP.

The Afghan drivers were also beaten up, they said.

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