German parliament beefs up Afghanistan deployment (Roundup)

Berlin - Germany's parliament approved Thursday a deployment of up to 300 airmen to assist in airborne surveillance operations in Afghanistan. The air force personnel will crew and provide maintenance for NATO airborne warning and control system (AWACS) planes when they are deployed in the land-locked Asian nation. The aircraft, with mushroom-shaped radar structures on their backs, will mainly supervise military air traffic. Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet sanctioned the deployment on June 17. The final step was approval in a 461-81 vote by the lower house, where Merkel's grand coalition has a comfortable majority. The planes will be sent from Geilenkirchen air base in Germany to a forward NATO base, probably Konya in Turkey. NATO defence ministers meeting in Brussels decided last month to deploy three or four AWACS planes to Afghanistan. Their ground and air crews are about one-third German. Germany has around 3,700 soldiers in Afghanistan, serving with a 65,000-strong NATO-led force deployed to the country from 42 nations. Germany has parliamentary authorization to send up to 4,500 troops to Afghanistan, but the leeway was deemed not to cover the AWACS crews. Further military involvement has become a political issue in the run up to general elections on September 27. Some 35 German soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the troop deployment began in 2002. Deputies paid tribute before Thursday's vote to three soldiers killed in a firefight with Taliban rebels in the northern region of Kunduz on June 23. The men were also honoured at a memorial service held in Germany on Thursday. Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said the loss of the men demonstrated 'the high price we pay so that we can live in peace and freedom in Germany.' Merkel told parliament that 'enormous difficulties and challenges' lay ahead for the NATO-led operation in Afghanistan. Earlier Thursday, US forces launched a large-scale offensive against the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand, part of US President Barack Obama's new strategy to step up the fight against the militants.