The United States said on Sunday it was confident NATO allies would be able to fill the shortfall of trainers and mentors needed in Afghanistan by reshuffling rather than expanding their existing troop commitments. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates's appeal for thousands of additional trainers and mentors has taken on new urgency since December, when President Barack Obama announced he was deploying 30,000 more U.S. troops with the goal of beginning to pull them out in July 2011, provided the Afghans can fill the security void, Reuters reported. Allies have promised to back Washington up by sending almost 10,000 additional troops of their own. "The key, it seems to me, is not necessarily more troops in addition to the 10,000, but rather to ensure that among those 10,000 are as many trainers and mentors as we possibly can get," Gates told reporters in Rome at a press conference with Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa. NATO leaders say new training teams are urgently needed if Afghanistan's security forces are to grow to a target of 300,000 personnel in 2011. Gates on Sunday singled out Italy for praise for committing another 1,000 troops, the most of any ally since Obama's December announcement. Nearly 120,000 foreign troops are now in Afghanistan, a number that will grow sharply in the coming months as new U.S. and NATO contingents arrive.
