KABUL, Nov 3: German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Saturday amid waning support at home for the country’s contribution of 3,000 soldiers to fight the Taliban and other extremists.

Journalists saw Merkel’s motorcade arrive at the presidential palace in Kabul ahead of an expected press conference with President Hamid Karzai.

The German embassy in Kabul would not give details of her programme, or say whether she was expected to visit the German troops based mostly in the north of the country.

It is Merkel’s first visit to Afghanistan as chancellor and comes after a survey last month found that only 29 per cent of Germans supported the country’s role here.

The German parliament on October 12 extended Berlin’s military engagement in Afghanistan for a year, passing a new mandate that sets a ceiling of 3,500 troops.

Most of Germany’s troops are part of the 37-nation, Nato-led International Security Assistance Force helping the fledgling Afghan security forces battle an insurgency led by the Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001.

The country also has about 200 elite soldiers with a separate US-led coalition that focuses largely on rounding up Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other militants.

Germany has been criticised for keeping the bulk of its forces in the relatively calm north of the country and resisting calls from its Nato allies to deploy them in the south, where the Taliban threat is most extreme.

It has six Tornado reconnaissance planes in the strife-wracked country but has turned down a request from Nato to send military transport helicopters to the south.

In the five years since it deployed in Afghanistan after the Taliban regime was ousted, Germany has lost 25 soldiers, three police officers and four civilians in attacks in Afghanistan.

A 62-year-old German engineer was held hostage by Taliban for three months until he was released last month.

The Taliban’s insurgency has grown steadily, with more than 5,000 people killed so far this year, most of them rebels, according to a tally based on official statements.

More than 190 foreign soldiers have also lost their lives in Afghanistan this year, most of them in combat and around the same number who died in the whole of 2006.

A coalition force soldier and an Afghan trooper were killed in action on Friday but the coalition has not given details of the incident.

The militants are meanwhile apparently still in control of two districts in the west of the country that they captured last week, forcing out Afghan police and administration officials.

Taliban insurgents have previously overrun several districts in remote parts of Afghanistan but were easily ejected with the help of international forces.

The insurgency has grown in strength year on year, despite the presence of more than 50,000 international troops under Nato or US command, with military officials reporting increasing number of foreign fighters on the battlefield, including from Pakistan and Uzbekistan.—AFP