(Adds quotes from defense minister on recent deaths)

OTTAWA, April 12 (Reuters) - Canada will lease 20 Leopard II battle tanks from Germany for use in Afghanistan this year and also plans to buy up to 100 used Leopard IIs from the Netherlands, which has a large surplus supply, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said on Thursday.

Canada currently has 17 first-generation Leopards in Afghanistan but says a lack of air conditioning means the 30-year-old tanks will become far too hot to use in summer.

"Equipping Canada's soldiers with the best protection is my top priority," O'Connor told a news conference in Quebec City. Soldiers say the Leopard tanks are useful in the fight against Taliban militants, especially in difficult terrain.

Eight Canadian soldiers have been killed over the last four days in roadside bomb blasts and O'Connor acknowledged it had been "a bad week". Canada has lost 53 soldiers in Afghanistan, most of them in tough fighting last year.

"It's not that the trend is worse, it's just that every once in a while we're going to hit one of these mines ... I've got my fingers crossed that this won't happen again," O'Connor said.

Canada's 2,500-strong mission in the southern city of Kandahar is due to stay until February 2009.

"If we're attacked we fight back. And if the Taliban concentrate as they did last summer, if they try to concentrate against us, we'll crush them like we did last summer," said O'Connor.

The total cost of leasing the German tanks and then buying and re-equipping the Dutch vehicles over the next five years will be C$650 million ($575 million).

($1=$1.13 Canadian)

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