The White House had settled on the idea of sending up to several hundred NATO advisers to help shield villagers in Sudan's Darfur region from the deadly armed conflict, the Washington Post reported Monday.

The move would include some U.S. troops and mark a significant expansion of U.S. and allied involvement. Their primary role would be to bolster African Union (AU) peacekeeping troops in their efforts to protect non-combatant locals from the fighting between rebel groups and government-backed Arab militias.

So far, NATO's role has been limited to airlifting AU peacekeeping troops to the region and providing a few military specialists to help the peacekeeping contingent, the Post said.

Unidentified U.S. officials were quoted as saying that President George W. Bush's administration had been trying to address shortcomings in the AU peacekeeping force without stirring resentment in a region highly sensitive to the presence of Western troops.

Plans under consideration envision fewer than 500 NATO advisers. They would be assigned to AU headquarter units and assist in logistics, communication, intelligence and command and control activities, with no direct engagement in field operations. The likely number of U.S. advisers had yet to be determined, the officials said.

The proposed deployment is intended as an interim measure until a UN force -- larger, and with a broader mandate than the AU force -- can be sent.

International negotiations for such a force have been underway for months but remain complicated by mounting Sudanese opposition to a UN presence and the absence of a peace agreement among the warring groups in Darfur.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan formally appealed to NATO in late March for help in fortifying the ability of the AU force to restrain armed groups and ensure the safety of civilians.

In mid-February, Bush signaled a new U.S. commitment to the Darfur crisis, calling for a sizable UN force and a bigger NATO role in the peacekeeping effort.

The AU decided on March 10 to extend its peacekeeping mission in the Darfur region for six months to give itself time to negotiate a peace agreement, but it promised to hand over the peacekeeping mission to the United Nations after the next mandate expires on Sept. 30.

At least 180,000 people have died and 2 million others have been displaced since the Darfur crisis flared up in 2003.

Source: Xinhua