A senior Pentagon official tells The Associated Press that top military leaders are expected soon to recommend to Defense Secretary Robert Gates which additional U.S. troops could be sent to Afghanistan over the next month or so.

The units are likely to be small and could include engineers, ordnance disposal troops and other support forces needed to shore up fighting needs and the training of Afghan forces. Officials have not ruled out identifying a larger, brigade-sized unit before the end of the year that could either be shifted to Afghanistan from a planned deployment to Iraq or moved from some other location.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have been asking for three combat brigades, or roughly 10,000 more troops, to help quash rising violence there.