Poland today confirmed it will send 900 extra troops to bolster the Nato mission in Afghanistan, but the deployment is unlikely to answer the plea by the alliance's top generals for reinforcements to fight the Taleban.

Nato's military and political chiefs say they need another 2,500 soldiers, as well as helicopters and transport aircraft, after meeting stiffer than expected opposition in southern Afghanistan.

Poland's extra 900 troops will be sent in February to bolster an existing contingent of 120 and will be based in northeastern town of Bagram, apparently dashing hopes of reinforcements for the south.

British and Canadian troops in the south, instead of peacekeeping, are daily finding themselves fighting battles against hundreds of Taleban fighters and local volunteers. Leaders of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) say that they do not have the manpower to create a floating reserve force of soldiers ready to be posted to hotspots to whenever trouble breaks out.

America's ambassador to Nato said yesterday that ideally extra troops needed to be in place as early as next month.

Despite days of meetings at Nato headquarters and an unusual public appeal for more soldiers by Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Secretary-General of Nato, no nation has declared itself willing to help.

Poland's confirmation of extra troops was made by Radoslaw Sikorski, the Defence Minister, in an interview in Washington shown on Polish television this morning. It was immediately clear that the timing, numbers and location of the extra troops were not the answer to Nato's prayer.

"From February 2007, we will have just over 1,000 soldiers in Afghanistan," he told Poland’s TVN24 television. "It will be a mechanised battalion that will be stationed at Bagram, where 100 of our soldiers are. We are going to take part in operations primarily in the eastern part of Afghanistan."

Last night, one senior Nato official said that the alliance was looking for a "framework nation" that would agree to form and lead a mobile reserve force.

After a meeting of Nato ambassadors in Brussels, an alliance spokesman said that there had been "positive informal indications".

James Appathurai, the chief spokesman for Nato, tried to put a brave face on the slow reaction yesterday. He said that the failure to find the extra troops needed for southern Afghanistan had not affected Operation Medusa, the Canadian-led offensive against the Taleban in Kandahar province.

Mr Appathurai said that two thirds of the territory was now under Nato control and had been cleared of improvised explosive devices and boobytraps. "It’s just that during this operation [which has lasted 12 days], commanders on the ground realised that with more troops and aircraft giving close air support the operation could have been carried out more quickly and with less risk," he said.

Asked whether the additional 2,500 soldiers needed could be deployed to southern Afghanistan before the snows came, the spokesman replied that "everyone is moving as fast as possible".

He said that Mr de Hoop Scheffer "expects and hopes that allies will continue to demonstrate solidarity and come forward to meet the shortfalls".

Nato’s mission, he added, did not extend to pacifying the country, simply to creating the conditions for reconstruction and training Afghan forces.

Poland said in 2005 it would send about 1,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2007. But Mr Sikorski said in June that the number would be only about 500.

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