The sixth Croatian contingent will consist of 50 military police officers and four members of a medical team, national coordinator for NATO Pjer Simunovic said at a press conference in Zagreb.
Simunovic said that the Croatian involvement in Afghanistan was important for Croatia's admission to the North Atlantic Alliance and the continuation of reform in the Croatian Armed Forces and that it reaffirmed the country's ability to meet its international obligations.
He said that the task of the Croatian troops was not to fight Taleban guerrillas, but restore peace and order to the capital Kabul and other parts of the country and engage in intelligence activities and usual police work.
The Croatian contingent will be stationed in Kabul in a camp of the ISAF multinational peacekeeping force that has been maintaining the peace in the country after the fall of the Taleban regime in 2001.
Simunovic said that Croatia would also dispatch a team of two diplomats and three police officers to Afghanistan in September to help a provincial reconstruction team in the town of Feyzabad in holding the first parliamentary elections since the US-led coalition forces ousted the Taleban regime.
Citing a Croatian Parliament decision authorising the sending of not more than 150 Croatian soldiers to Afghanistan, Simunovic said that a Croatian Army company was expected to leave for Afghanistan in February next year and that its exact mandate would be known by the end of this year.
Simunovic confirmed that Croatia was in negotiations with NATO member Lithuania on the deployment of a seven-member mobile team within the ISAF mission in central Afghanistan.