Brussels, July 31 (DPA) The last time NATO handed over to a new secretary general, in 2004, the alliance had 19 members, a handful of troops in Afghanistan and a diplomatic hangover from the US-led Iraq war.

When Denmark's former prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, 56, takes over the role Saturday, he will inherit a club which has grown to 28 members, an Afghan mission numbering 64,500 men and diplomatic headaches stretching from Georgia to the Gulf of Aden.

All those factors are set to shape his four-year tenure, as NATO fights its Afghan war, looks for a more predictable relationship with Russia and struggles to agree who should join the alliance next.

Afghanistan is set to dominate Fogh Rasmussen's tenure, as it did that of his predecessor, Dutch former foreign minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

The mission is not only NATO's biggest ever, it is far and away its bloodiest: over 1,000 Western troops have died since the alliance began operations in the 'Graveyard of Empires'.

The bulk of the casualties have been suffered by just a handful of countries whose troops are posted in the war-torn south: the US, Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and Denmark.

The Dutch are expected to pull out of Afghanistan next year, while Canada is debating a 2011 pull-out. Britain's role is also under fire at home after 22 soldiers were killed in action in July alone.

If they go, few other NATO states are likely to replace them. Some, such as the Baltic states, lack the manpower; others, such as France, Germany and Italy, who have the resources, are unwilling to send troops into a combat zone which has already cost so many lives.

That leaves Fogh Rasmussen with the task of shoring up NATO support for the mission, while preventing any repetition of earlier bitter accusations of unfair burden-sharing between members.