Canada says NATO must do more in southern Afghanistan

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OTTAWA (Reuters) - NATO members must send more troops to southern Afghanistan, where Canada and a few other nations are bearing the brunt of combat against Taliban militants, Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay said on Wednesday.

Canada, which has 2,500 soldiers in the SOUTHERN (SO.NY)city ofKandahar and plans to send around 200 more, has long complainedthat many NATO members refuse to send soldiers to the mostdangerous parts of the country.

"We're doing enough ... but NATO has to do more," MacKaytold reporters in televised comments from Levis, Quebec.

"Southern Afghanistan is the flash point in this mission.It's the most vulnerable, the most volatile part of the country... we're not going to let up or relent on our request forother NATO countries to come to the south," he said.

The majority of soldiers fighting in southern Afghanistanare U.S., British, Canadian and Dutch.

Canada's mission in Kandahar is due to end in 2011. So far88 of its soldiers have died.

The extra 200 troops will maintain and operate unmannedaerial surveillance vehicles (UAVs) and helicopters that Canadahas pledged to buy before February 2009.

MacKay said that, in the interim, Canada was leasingbetween six and eight Russian-made Mil Mi-8 helicopters as wellas an unspecified number of UAVs.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Rob Wilson)