Nato boosts Afghan troops amid raging protests

Nato leaders pledged thousands more troops for their Afghan mission yesterday, as violent anti-war demonstrations raged outside the summit.

Britain, Spain and Italy said they would send hundreds of extra troops each to secure Afghanistan's key August presidential election, adding what the White House said was a total of "up to 5,000" personnel.

The deal was a victory for new US President Barack Obama, who came to his first Nato summit to promote his new Afghan strategy and warn his allies that Europe would have to shoulder more of the war-fighting burden.

"I am pleased that our Nato allies pledged their strong and unanimous support for our new strategy," Obama told reporters.

Although France and Germany were not among the countries who made major new troop commitments, Obama praised President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel as the joint hosts of the 60th anniversary summit.

"This summit and this alliance have delivered," outgoing Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters at the end of the gathering in Strasbourg.

According to Scheffer, in addition to boosting coalition force numbers, the various member states have agreed to provide more training teams for Afghan forces and to set aside more funding for the Afghan army.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Spain would send 450 troops, Britain's Gordon Brown promised "hundreds" and Silvio Berlusconi said Italy's contingent would increase to "around 3,000" from around 2,300 now.

Meanwhile, hardliners from the so-called Black Blocks set fire to the ground floor of a hotel near the summit venue, during clashes between militants armed with rocks and iron bars and a 10,000-strong force of riot police, leaving at least 10 people injured, the French government said.

Some 100 masked demonstrators armed with metal bars also wrecked a chapel, a pharmacy, an empty police post and other buildings at the French end of the Europe bridge connecting Strasbourg with Germany.

They daubed on the roof a quotation from French writer Victor Hugo, 'Religion is nothing but the shadow cast by the universe upon human intelligence'.

The rioters emerged from a larger group of demonstrators - 30,000 according to organisers, 10,000 according to the police - who chanted 'Nato means war! 60 years is enough!' and 'Quit Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes We Can'.

A service station was looted and volunteer medical teams attached to the march claimed that protesters had been injured by rubber bullets.

The tension saw a planned visit to a cancer research centre for spouses including Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy scrapped and replaced by a museum and cathedral tour.

The militants were in the vanguard of clashes with French riot police using water cannon and tear gas for what organisers had promised would be a "monster" rally.

Police were equipped with batons, helmets and body armour - backed up by helicopters buzzing overhead.

Many demonstrators were masked and wore black, brandishing red and black flags, peace banners, beating drums and carrying pictures of Latin American revolutionary icon Che Guevara. Some came prepared with their own gas masks.

The road was littered with signs of previous clashes: a smouldering barricade, broken glass and spent tear-gas grenades giving off an acrid smell.

On the German side of the Rhine, a comparatively peaceful group of 5,000 to 6,000 protesters, according to a police tally, were prevented from crossing into France.

"We are disappointed, of course," said their spokesman Dieter Lachenmayer. "We wanted to join our French friends so that the demonstration could be international."

A Franco-German river patrol arrested around a dozen divers from environmental group Greenpeace who attempted to enter the Rhine in wetsuits ahead of the Obama-Sarkozy photocall.

And as the 28 Nato leaders held talks, up to 200 demonstrators penetrated the outer security cordon and blocked traffic.

"We are near the congress centre... It is a first victory for us because President Sarkozy said that he didn't want to see demonstrators on the street," a 45-year-old German protester told AFP.

Around 100 riot police lined out across the flashpoint bridge - the focus of cat-and-mouse antics since Thursday - waving marchers through a small gap around a dozen at a time.