WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- The deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, ordered by President Barack Obama, will begin next week, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

    The first batch of those troops to arrive there is a Marine battalion, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen told reporters at the Foreign Press Center in Washington.

    So far 16,000 troops have received the marching orders under Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan announced on Dec. 1, with tens of thousands of military gears waiting for transportation, he added.

    The whole deployment is supposed to be completed before next summer.

    Obama delivered a prime-time speech to the nation on Dec. 1, laying out a strategy which calls for sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and starting pulling out U.S. forces in July 2011.

    However, public attitude towards the strategy is divided as U.S. war casualties and costs of the Afghan war keeps piling up.