About 40 members of Canada's elite anti-terrorist group, Joint Task Force 2, are on the ground near Kandahar, Defence Minister Art Eggleton said Wednesday.

In an interview with CTV Newsnet, Eggleton said the troops are assisting U.S., British and Australian special forces as well as local Afghan fighters around Kandahar.

The ultra-secretive unit was deployed in early December, but their exact location had never been disclosed until now. Eggleton would not give any details of the unit's operations, including whether they have seen any action.

"Reconnaissance is part of what they do, but I can't go into the whole menu of possibilities because they are assault troops or commandos, they do operate in a covert fashion," Eggleton said by phone from Brussels, where he was attending NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) meetings.

Kandahar was one of the last Taliban-held cities to fall to opposition fighters. The Kandahar airport is currently under the control of 1,500 U.S. Marines, which have prepared the airfield for military use and set up a camp for 300 Afghan prisoners of war.

JTF-2 is an elite unit based in Dwyer Hill, Ont. near Ottawa. It was created in the early 1990s after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police handed its counterterrorism duties off to the military.

The unit shuns publicity and little is known about the members of JTF-2 except that they're required to be in top condition and subjected to a series of physical and mental tests.

Originally, the unit specialized in domestic hostage-rescue missions, but in recent years its role has expanded to include special operations and unconventional warfare.

Britain to lead peacekeeping efforts

The assault troops are separate from the peacekeeping forces that Canada has promised to send into Afghanistan soon.

Britain has pledged to lead the international peacekeeping force, while the new interim government takes power. Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain and Canada have all offered troops for the contingent.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien has said that fewer than 1,000 Canadian peacekeepers will be sent in.

British defence officials said Wednesday the lead elements of British troops, comprising 100-200 soldiers, would be in Kabul by Saturday, when the new interim Afghan government takes power. However, the full international force will not be fully in place for at least a month.

Afghanistan's interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai and other members of his post-Taliban government agreed to a multinational peacekeepers force of between 3,000 to 5,000 at UN-sponsored talks in Bonn, Germany earlier this month.

The UN Security Council has yet to formally ratify a resolution permitting an Afghan peacekeeping force but is expected to adopt the resolution by Dec. 22.

Britain told the UN on Wednesday it would only lead a multinational force in Afghanistan for a few months and in the case of a conflict with the U.S. military, the Americans would be in charge.