KABUL, Oct. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- NATO will send more than 10,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, as the forces are going to move into the country's more volatile south to conduct peacekeeping missions next year, the 26-nation group's chief said Thursday.

    The expansion of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) into the volatile southern part of the country where Taliban and al Qaida rebels are active "will of course lead to the arrival of certainly a few thousand extra NATO forces," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters.

    "I can't give you the exact numbers, but you may say it will be well over 10,000, between 13 and 14, 15,000," he said after talks with President Hamid Karzai.

    The reinforcement will double the number of NATO troops in Afghanistan to more than 20,000. The ISAF is due to move into the country's south next year and may join force with the US-led coalition forces to hunt down Taliban and al Qaida insurgents in the region. Enditem