US President Barack Obama’s first task after being anointed Friday as this year's greatest peacemaker will be to decide how to wage war in Afghanistan.

Obama sensationally won the Nobel Peace Prize less than nine months into his presidency, with the jury hailing his "ex-traordinary" diplomatic efforts on the international stage.

Now he faces the monumental decision over how to proceed in an unpopular and deepening war in which hundreds of American lives have been lost this year, and whether or not to commit even more troops to Afghanistan.

Obama is die fourth US leader to win the distinguished award, but he is certainly the only Nobel laureate forced to make such a monumental decision about a US war immediately after earning the distinction.

Obama may decide on US commander General Stanley McChrystal's request for up to 40,000 more troops for Afghanistan as early as Friday, when he holds the latest in a series of meetings with his top diplomatic. military and intelligence advisers on w ar policy.

Infusing the atmosphere of that meet ing no doubt will be the extra weight on Obama's shoulders as a global peacemaker, and the reactions from around the region.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai immediately congratulated Obama on Friday, saying he was the "appropriate" person to w in die peace prize.

"His haul work and his new vision on global relations, his will and efforts for creating friendly and good relations at global level and global peace make him the appropriate recipient of the Nobel

Peace Prize," Karzai spokesman Siamak Hirai told AFP.

The country's Taliban insurgents however condemned the award to Obama as "unjust." saying the president had "not taken a single step towards peace in Afghanistan. "

"Wc have seen no change in Ills strat-egy for peace." said Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Islamic fundamentalist militants.

"He has done nothing for peace in Afghanistan," Mujahid told AFP Hehasnot taken a single step for peace in Afghanistan or to make this country stable. ”

The stunning Nobel announcement came just hours after the White I louse said the Taliban poses less of a threat to US security than the al-Qaeda movement, raising speculation that Obama may not opt for a vastly increased counterinsurgency force in Afghanistan.