US President Barack Obama huddled with his war council Wednesday for the fifth time, debating whether to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan as he maps a new strategy to quell the conflict. Obama has said he hopes to unveil his plans in the coming weeks as he desperately seeks to contain the violence in Afghanistan fueled by the resurgent Taliban ousted from power eight years ago and Al-Qaeda militants. He met Wednesday in the White House with his national security team including Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton via videoconference from Russia. The latest meeting comes after a grim assessment of the war by General Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO and US commander in Afghanistan, who has reportedly asked for up to 40,000 more troops to fight the insurgency. McChrystal joined the talks along with Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and CIA chief Leon Panetta. Obama said the principal goal of any new policy would be consistent with current US aims -- rooting out Al-Qaeda and its 'extremist allies.' 'We are going through a very deliberative process,' Obama said Tuesday after talks with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. 'I won't provide you a preview of what I am seeing or hearing,' he added, saying only: 'I would expect that we will have a completion of this current process in the coming weeks.' Britain on Wednesday announced it was sending an extra 500 soldiers to Afghanistan, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown also urged NATO allies to do their 'fair share' in the increasingly deadly and unpopular war. And he pressed Kabul to provide more troops and get tough on corruption. The pace of the closed-door talks has stepped up in Washington with Obama due to meet again with his national security advisors next week. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that McChrystal has offered the president several alternative options, including a maximum injection of up to 60,000 extra troops. The US force in the NATO-led mission was at about 34,000 when Obama was sworn in on January 20, and starting in March, the administration said the force would rise to 68,000 by the end of the year. But public opinion is souring towards the war in both the United States and Britain. A Populus opinion poll for the Times newspaper out Wednesday showed that public calls for an end to Britain's engagement in Afghanistan have risen sharply as casualties mount, with 36 percent of voters now believing all British forces should be withdrawn. Although Obama has remained tight-lipped about his deliberations, the White House has made it clear that a total withdrawal from Afghanistan is not an option. 'We need a policy that works. And if that takes a little bit more time to get right, I think that's what the American people expect,' spokesman Robert Gibbs said. 'There are many pieces that all have to fit together -- as I said, militarily, civilian, diplomatically -- all of which have to work together to ensure a policy that works for our allies and for our goal of destroying Al-Qaeda.' The White House appears to be making a clear distinction between Al-Qaeda and the lesser threat they say is posed to US security by the Taliban, fueling suspicion Obama is leaning away from sending tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan to escalate the counter-insurgency. That is an approach favored by Biden, while Clinton and Gates are reported to have a wider vision of the conflict including its civilian and diplomatic consequences. On the Republican side, Senator John McCain who was defeated by Obama in last year's White House race, has warned Sunday that a failure to dispatch more US troops to Afghanistan would be 'an error of historic proportions. 'I think the great danger now is not an American pullout,' McCain told CNN television on Sunday. 'I think the great danger now is a half-measure... trying to please all ends of the political spectrum.' More than 100,000 foreign soldiers under NATO and US command are in Afghanistan as the war goes into its ninth year, with casualties so far in 2009 at 409, according to icasualties.org. 