KABUL - AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai on Monday asked the top US military officer to ensure that his government is consulted on the deployment next year of tens of thousands of new troops, his office said.

Mr Karzai made the request during a meeting with Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who at the weekend announced that up to 30,000 additional US troops would be sent to Afghanistan by next summer.

'Hamid Karzai asked the US chief of staff for more details on his country's decision to send 20,000 to 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan,' the Afghan presidency said in a statement.

'The Afghan government must be consulted on deployment of more troops, especially stationing of forces, type of military operations and participation of the Afghan national army in operations,' it said, quoting Mr Karzai.

The statement quoted Adm Mullen as saying that most of the fresh troops would be deployed in areas where Taliban and other insurgents are most active, notably along Afghanistan's southern and eastern borders with Pakistan.

Mr Karzai has repeatedly asked that the bulk of the 70,000 troops under Nato and US command in Afghanistan be deployed in those areas in order to stop militants crossing over from Pakistan to attack US and Nato forces.

The Afghan leader, a key US ally, also told Mullen that US forces should limit civilian casualties, and stop conducting house searches at night and arbitrary detentions without prior coordination with Afghan security forces.

He said such activities should be stopped as 'people's cooperation and support is vital for success in counter-terrorism operations,' according to the statement.

Civilians are often caught up in Afghanistan's conflict as international and Afghan troops battle extremist insurgents, including those from the Taleban who were in government between 1996 and 2001.

Mr Karzai asked Adm Mullen to conduct a full investigation into an incident last week in eastern Khost province in which three people were killed. The US military said they were militants, but locals insisted they were civilians. -- AFP