(Adds Brown quotes) LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) - Britain is ready to send more troops to Afghanistan to support an increase in U.S. troop numbers to tackle the Taliban insurgency, the head of the British army said on Friday. General Sir Richard Dannatt told the Times newspaper members of 12 Mechanised Brigade, who were ready for deployment to Iraq but were later stood down, had been "earmarked for Afghanistan". He said there were no plans to send the whole brigade of about 4,000 but the number of British troops serving in the country could rise to somewhere in between the current level of 8,300 and 12,000. The Ministry of Defence said no final decision on numbers had been taken. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said other countries also had to play their part in supporting the military effort in Afghanistan. He said Britain would step up training of local military and police, to bring Afghan troops trained in the country above 200,000 from 70,000 today, to support the U.S. plans. "We have already increased our (troop) numbers in Afghanistan," he told a press briefing in Santiago during a diplomatic tour ahead of next week's G20 meeting in London. "We will talk at the NATO meeting in a few days time about burden sharing across Europe and across the world. There are more than 40 countries involved in Afghanistan and they must play their part." U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday he would deploy 4,000 extra troops to Afghanistan as part of a new strategy focused on destroying al Qaeda safe havens and rolling back the Taliban insurgency. The head of Britain's military, Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup, has made it clear he is not in a position to make a one-for-one increase in troops in Afghanistan even though Britain is preparing to leave Iraq. Britain has 4,100 troops in southern Iraq and all but 400 of them will be withdrawn by the end of July. Sources at the Ministry of Defence have said there is the potential to increase numbers marginally ahead of Afghan elections in August, taking the number of British troops serving there to nearly 10,000, from 8,300 currently. Violence in the region is at its highest level since U.S.-led forces invaded in 2001 to topple the Taliban. (Reporting by Christina Fincher, Luke Baker, Mark John and Adrian Croft; Editing by Tim Castle)
Newly graduate members of the Afghan community force stand in attention in Mehtar Lam, capital of the eastern Laghman province March 26, 2009. The first recruits graduated on Thursday to a ...
