Kabul, Afghanistan ? Afghanistan welcomed the impending NATO takeover of the 5,000-strong multinational peacekeeping force Sunday and urged that it be expanded beyond Kabul.

NATO is taking over command of the International Security Assistance Force in large part to end the arduous task of searching for a new “lead nation” every six months to run it. Germany and the Netherlands have jointly led the force for the last six months.

A change-of-command ceremony is scheduled for today.

“The Afghan Government is confident that ISAF’s mission effectiveness will be enhanced by NATO’s new role at the helm of the peacekeeping force in Kabul,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Largely because of the peacekeepers’ presence, Kabul is now considered generally safe, while the rest of country is ruled by rival warlords whose armed factions often turn their guns on one another. A vast area along the southern and eastern border with Pakistan is home to a low-level guerrilla insurgency being waged by Taliban rebels and their allies.

On Sunday, the United Nations said it had suspended road travel for its workers in a southern Afghanistan region where five policemen were wounded and Afghan aid workers were tied up and beaten.

The two separate attacks happened last Tuesday in the Maywand district of Kandahar province, U.N. spokesman David Singh told reporters in Kabul.

President Hamid Karzai’s government, along with U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi and human-rights groups, have repeatedly called for peacekeepers’ mandate to be expanded outside the capital, particularly with general elections set for June 2004.

So far, however, no nation has been willing to support that endeavor. Outgoing ISAF commander Lt. Gen. Norbert van Heyst said last week it would require at least 10,000 additional soldiers.

“The Afghan government remains convinced that starting serious and meaningful discussions among all stakeholders to consider expanding the U.N.-approved mandate of ISAF beyond Kabul can take place at the earliest opportune time,” the Foreign Ministry said.