Pentagon to send three brigades to Afghanistan as regular rotation

The Pentagon announced Tuesday that it will send three brigades to Afghanistan as part of regular troop rotations, Xinhua reported.

    The deployment includes two active duty Army brigades totaling 7,700 troops and a National Guard brigade with 3,500 troops, the Pentagon said on its website.

    The scheduled rotation for these forces will begin in the spring of 2010 and won't change current U.S. force-levels in Afghanistan.

    In addition, a squadron of MV-22 Ospreys aircraft will be sent to Afghanistan beginning next month.

    Meanwhile, U.S. decision-makers are still debating on future direction of the Afghan strategy.

    On one hand, top military leaders and Republicans are pressing U.S. President Barack Obama to act quickly to increase the present68,000-troops level by at least 40,000.

    Meanwhile, senior White House advisors are reportedly pushing back the request for sending large number of additional troops, saying that the United States should instead focus on faster military training of Afghan forces, assassinations of al-Qaida leaders and support for the government of neighboring Pakistan to fight against the Taliban.

    As the casualty toll grows and public support for the Afghan war wanes, Obama is carrying out a major strategy review of his Afghanistan policy.

    The White House said that a final decision is still weeks away.