History > 2006 > UK > Wars > Afghanistan (I)

British troops in 5-day chase of Taliban

May 28, 2006
The Sunday Times
Tim Albone, Lashkar Gah

IN the wild, unforgiving terrain of southern Afghanistan, over which people have fought for centuries, the latest players on the battlefield are crack British troops in light, manoeuvrable Land Rovers.

The Pathfinders, an elite unit of 16 Air Assault Brigade, spent five days on a gruelling pursuit of Taliban militants across this rugged landscape, it emerged yesterday. The hunt culminated in their first engagement with the Taliban since 3,300 British troops arrived in Helmand province.

Violence in the region has intensified in recent weeks as the poppy harvest — the mainstay of the local economy and the scourge of heroin-importing countries — comes to an end and farmers sympathetic to the Taliban resume the battle against government forces and the “foreign invaders”.

In the past fortnight more than 400 people, most of them anti-government militants, have been killed. The casualty rate reflects the reckless streak of the Taliban whose specialities, beyond intimidating the local population into giving them food and shelter, are suicide attacks and roadside ambushes.

The Pathfinders, who saw action recently in Sierra Leone, are also a formidable bunch. Their physical selection is on a par with that of the SAS.

“They are very, very tough,” a military expert said. “They are the hand-picked elite. They undergo long forced marches.” They are also known for the “halo”, or “high altitude low opening” parachute jump.

None of this stops them from feeling somewhat vulnerable in WMIK Land Rovers — specially adapted armed vehicles without roofs or doors. Yet there is no better vehicle for this difficult terrain, say the Pathfinders, who prefer speed to armour.

Their dash through the mountains began on May 17, when they were unexpectedly summoned to the rescue.

A poorly trained police force of 100 in the town of Musa Qala had been cornered by a much greater force of Taliban fighters. “They said there were 500 Taliban, but I am not sure how accurate that is,” said a British source. Already 13 policemen had been shot dead. They needed help, and quickly.

Travelling down roads that are often little more than rutted gravel tracks, it was a white-knuckle ride. Often the dried out riverbeds or wadis made an easier route. The threat of ambush slowed things further: despite being far more rigorously trained than the Taliban, the British soldiers were well aware that their enemy knew the terrain a lot better. The 30 Pathfinders also knew they were greatly outnumbered.

By dawn on Friday, May 19, they were perched high above Musa Qala with a good view of policemen storming out of the town in Toyota pick-up trucks — the standard vehicle for Afghan fighters, whichever side they are fighting on.

The tables had turned. Driven by a desire to avenge their heavy casualties and aided by reinforcements from other parts of the province, the police had seized the advantage. A long line of their vehicles was snaking up the valley in pursuit of the Taliban.

The British tagged on to the end of this extraordinary convoy. They were soon deep in enemy territory, a land where very few, if any, coalition troops had ever set foot. This was where Mullah Omar, the fugitive one-eyed Taliban leader, was reported to have fled after American military might put paid to his eccentric medieval regime in late 2001.

With temperatures pushing 50C and the threat of ambush growing ever greater, it became an even more uncomfortable journey.

When the Pathfinders reached the outskirts of a town called Baghran in the mountainous far north of the province on Saturday the sound of gunfire greeted them: the police had resumed contact with Taliban fighters on the fringes of the town. For the moment, however, they seemed unwilling to push forward.

The British called in air support. Soon a giant American B1 bomber was flying lazy circles at low altitude over the town.

Its menacing rumble alone seemed enough to dampen the spirits of defenders who knew only too well the devastation one of these American planes can unleash. The policemen pushed into town without meeting further resistance.

There followed a shura or meeting between British troops, Afghan police and the town’s elders over glasses of sweet tea. “The elders said to us, ‘The Taliban are here and we are scared’,” said the source. “They were pleased to see us.”

It was not until later in the day that the real trouble began. The British were on their way back to Musa Qala when, but for their extraordinary stealth and training, they might have driven into a lethal trap.

“In a place called Paysang, we became aware that there were a few people there who shouldn’t be there,” said the source. “There was a large gorge and it was evident that they were setting up an ambush.”

The chatter of gunfire began echoing down the valley as Taliban fighters opened up on the British with their Kalashnikov assault rifles and machineguns, and the British returned fire with M4 carbines — not the standard issue for British soldiers but nonetheless a highly effective weapon.

The British sources would not confirm whether any fighters were killed or wounded.

Again the British called in air power, this time French Super Etendard jets based on the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean. Backed by British troops, Afghan police assaulted the Taliban from different positions. The exchanges carried on for much of the rest of the day and once the French jets had done their work American A10 Warthog anti-tank aircraft were called in to make a few low sweeps over enemy positions.

As the Pathfinder source put it laconically: “A couple of shots were fired. A few of our guys came into contact, but the contact finished and we carried on into Musa.”

Afghan police say the five days of fighting left 60 Taliban dead. The British arranged for two injured Afghan policemen to be evacuated. Another policeman had been killed, the only death among police ranks since the British had joined them.

Arriving back in Musa Qala last Sunday, the exhausted British soldiers found several families loading up their belongings to cross the river and leave. They had been threatened by the Taliban.

“When they saw us and heard what we and the police had to say, they decided to stay. They also said some other families were planning to leave but they would tell them to stay as well,” said the source.

The British set up patrols with the police and strengthened the force’s compound. Today they will be replaced by US special forces. Returning to base, the Pathfinders will have their first hot shower and cooked meal in 14 days.

The Taliban have often claimed that the British are too frightened to fight them face to face, a charge proudly denied by Colonel Charlie Knaggs, head of the British presence in Helmand. “There are now a few Taliban in the north of Helmand,” he said, “who couldn’t say that they hadn’t faced British troops without telling a lie.”

British troops in 5-day chase of Taliban, STs, 28.5.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2200103,00.html

Across the border from Britain's troops, Taliban rises again

This has been Afghanistan's bloodiest week for five years, and in the Pakistani city of Quetta, insurgents roam at will

Saturday May 27, 2006
Guardian
Declan Walsh & Bagarzai Saidan


Azizullah, the serious-minded son of a Pakistani farmer, yearned for martyrdom, his family said. This week the Taliban made his wish come true.
The zealots inspired him to jihad, trained him to shoot and dispatched him to fight the infidel Americans across the border in Afghanistan. So it was fitting that after he died last Sunday night, trapped under a hail of American firepower, that a procession of black-turbaned men brought him home.

"He always wanted to die like this, a heroic death. We are very proud of him," said his brother, Gul Nasib, a solemn looking man with a drawn face, at their home in Bagarzai Saidan, a village on a yawning plain in Pakistan's Baluchistan province. The Afghan border lay 30 miles north.

Now all that remained was a picture of Azizullah on the picture on Nasib's mobile phone, his eyes closed and flowers garlanded around his face. Hushed mourners streamed to the grave, a mound of stones draped with a green cloth. A waft of incense clung to the evening air.

The Taliban flag fluttered at one end of the grave; the black and white standard of Jamiaat Ulema Islam (JUI-F), an extremist Pakistani religious party that helps to rule Baluchistan, protruded from the other.

An hour earlier a radical cleric, Maulana Abdul Bari - who also happens to be Baluchistan's minister for public health - addressed the village from a mosque. "Azizullah was a true martyr, his place in paradise is guaranteed," he said, his words echoing through a loudspeaker and across the village. "His blood will not be lost. It will strengthen Islam like water feeds a tree."

Azizullah died in Panjwayi, a violent district of Kandahar province where US A-10 "warthog" planes pounded a religious school filled with Taliban. The Americans claimed to have killed up to 80 fighters; yesterday a human rights group said 34 civilians perished too.

The battle was the climax of Afghanistan's bloodiest week since 2001. A succession of firefights raged across Kandahar and Helmand, where 3,300 British troops are being deployed as part of an ambitious Nato mission. By yesterday an estimated 339 people were dead, most of them Taliban fighters like Azizullah.

What worries western commanders and their Afghan allies is not just the intensity of the storm but its direction.

The Taliban recruit, resupply and coordinate their war effort from Pakistan, according to western and military officials. The insurgents slip across at several points along the 930-mile border, a largely unpatrolled stretch of sand, rock and mountain. But the weakest - and most controversial - blindspot is in Baluchistan.

A vast and largely lawless province, Baluchistan offers a range of hiding places. Returning from Azizullah's funeral service, the Guardian passed young men sauntering down the road or hunkered over tea at roadside cafes. All were dressed in inky black shalwar kameez and roughly tied black turbans - dress that is not native to Baluchistan but in Afghanistan is unambiguously associated with the Taliban.

Some insurgents melt into the camps that house more than 231,000 Afghan refugees in Baluchistan. Others shelter in madrassas run by local sympathisers such as JUI-F and funded with Middle Eastern money. North of Pishin, a bustling market town, teenage boys with jewelled skullcaps sat cross-legged outside a mud-walled madrassa. The sign at the gate read "Zia ul Uloom Al Arabiya" - "the Light of the Knowledge of Arabia".

Headquarters

But the Taliban nerve centre is allegedly 30 miles south in the provincial capital Quetta, which a British officer, Colonel Chris Vernon, recently described as "the major headquarters".

Once a British colonial garrison town, Quetta has long been a home to spies, smugglers and fighters. During the 1980s it was a base for Afghan mujahideen battling Soviet troops inside Afghanistan.

Today it still has a pungent air of intrigue. Police at checkposts guard for Baluch nationalist guerrillas who have dramatically escalated a bombing campaign against the state. Government intelligence agents sit indiscreetly in the lobby of the largest hotel, the Serena, carefully tracking the movements of visiting foreigners.

Diverted western aid, such as American vegetable oil and United Nations sheeting, are on sale in the main bazaar. For those interested, so are guns, heroin and hashish smuggled across the border from Afghanistan.

The Taliban move through the town like a dark whisper. Yesterday morning in Pashtunibad district, small groups of young men with kohl under their eyes and silky white or black turbans on their heads strolled between the vegetable stalls and clothes traders. By midday many had pushed into the city's mosques, where preachers dished up the usual fiery fare.

At the central mosque, Maulana Abdul Wahid railed against a Jewish and Christian "conspiracy against Muslims" and spoke admiringly about the suicide bombers. "Regardless of the cost to their lives, at least some Muslims are struggling," he told worshippers.

The largely low-key Taliban presence occasionally bursts into the open. On May 8 motorcycle-riding assassins gunned down Mullah Samad Barakzai, a one-time Taliban official from Helmand who had shifted his support to the US-backed Karzai government. Yesterday his son, Hafiz Shabir Ahmed, cancelled an arranged interview with the Guardian. "I've been told not to talk about it," he said.

The Taliban presence is also a matter of sensitivity for the Pakistani government. Relations with Afghanistan are at their lowest level in years following unfiltered criticism that Islamabad is doing little to close down the Taliban war machine.

Last week President Hamid Karzai told a provincial gathering: "We know very well that in Pakistani madrassas, boys are being told to go to Afghanistan for jihad. They're being told to go and burn schools and clinics."

Col Vernon's allegation that Quetta was a Taliban headquarters caused Pakistani official to lodge furious complaints with the British high commission, which hurriedly issued a statement distancing itself from the officer's "personal views".

'Martyrs'

Pakistan argues it is being unfairly blamed for an Afghan problem. Officials say it is is impossible seal a border which is populated on both sides by Pashtun tribesmen who consider it a colonial anachronism. Up to 15,000 people pass through the main checkpost at Chaman every day, said a military spokesman, Major General Shaukat Sultan. "Everyone has a black or white turban, a shalwar kameez and a beard. Everyone looks like a Taliban. You can't arrest them all," he said.

Pakistan has also taken other steps to address western and Afghan concerns. Posters, calendars and audio cassettes celebrating Taliban "martyrs" and Osama bin Laden have been removed from the city centre shops. Four months ago police arrested over 50 radical clerics who defied a ban on broadcasting sermons over loudspeakers. But many believe it could do more. Suspicions linger that elements within the country's intelligence services take a lacklustre approach to clamping down on the Taliban fighters that they once helped to arm and indoctrinate. Such an idea was "rubbish", said Maj Gen Sultan.

A western intelligence source said that several Taliban leaders are living in Quetta, possibly including Mullah Dadullah, a one-legged cleric close to the monocular leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar. But although Pakistan has killed or detained more than 1,000 al-Qaida suspects since 2001, according to one recent report, it has only picked up a handful of Taliban militants. Until his arrest last October Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi openly spoke with reporters from Quetta.

The Taliban's true strength, however, is felt across the border. Over the past six months the insurgents have ratcheted up their campaign to overthrow President Karzai's western-backed government - an idea that once appeared quixotic but has now acquired some potency. At least 32 suicide bombs and almost daily roadside bombs so far this year reveal an enemy that is better organised, funded and motivated than ever before

"It hasn't been this bad since 2001," said one westerner with several years' experience in Kandahar. "And I think it's going to get worse before it gets better."

Corruption

The Taliban are not the only enemy facing the 7,000-strong Nato force. Four years and billions of pounds later, the Karzai-led government and its western backers have dismally failed to draw the southern provinces into the central government. Now they are haemorrhaging support rapidly.

The parlous state of central authority is most evident in Helmand. The police are corrupt, government departments defunct and, despite years of disarmament, guns are everywhere.

The Taliban rule the night. Abdul Qadeer, a 38-year-old teacher, angrily brandished his work papers as he fruitlessly sought help. The Taliban had burned down his school months earlier, he said. When he started teaching again from a tent in the yard they sent another letter that read: "We kindly request you not to attend school any more or we will kill you."

Mr Karzai's failure to bring real change has caused great disillusionment among the "swing voters" that the British mission hopes to woo.

Last week Ghulam Sarwar, a weary looking farmer, sat in the shade of a trellis of hanging grapes as his 10-year-old nephew Abdul served tea.

The central government was all but invisible in his life, he said, having failed to deliver promised irrigation systems and fertiliser irrigation to grow legitimate crops. "They have given us nothing so the poppy is a kind of revenge," he said.

When poppy eradication teams took to the fields, slashing down crops, they sidestepped farmers with bribe money or political connections. But over half of Sarwar's crops were destroyed.

"If they are going to destroy our fields there should at least be some alternative. It seems this government is against its own people."

    Across the border from Britain's troops, Taliban rises again, G, 27.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1784304,00.html

US warplanes kill scores of Taliban in worst Afghan clashes for years

· Villagers tell of air raid as insurgents hid in school
· Six days of violence raises stakes for British troops

Tuesday May 23, 2006
Guardian
Declan Walsh in Islamabad


US warplanes killed up to 80 insurgents and 16 civilians during a raid on a Taliban hideout, as southern Afghanistan saw some of the heaviest fighting since 2001. Six days of violence resulted in 285 deaths, triggering fresh worries about Afghanistan's stability and raising the stakes for a 3,300-strong British force deploying to Helmand province.

On Sunday night, American A-10 "Warthog" fighter jets pounded houses and compounds in Azizi village in western Kandahar, where Taliban renegades were sheltering. The strikes, which lasted several hours, were in response to Taliban fire on a coalition mission, according to a US military statement. A security source in Kandahar said the US also used Apache helicopter gunships in the battle.

Sixteen civilians were killed and another 16 injured, said an unapologetic Kandahar governor, Asadullah Khalid. "These sort of accidents happen during fighting, especially when the Taliban are hiding in homes," he said. An injured villager, Haji Ikhlaf, estimated that up to 40 Taliban were killed and that 50 civilians were dead or wounded. A coalition statement said it confirmed 20 Taliban killed and there were an unconfirmed 60 additional Taliban casualties.

The American commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, said he was looking into reports of civilian deaths.

Reporters were prevented from reaching Azizi by Canadian and Afghan roadblocks. However, locals who fled to Kandahar said the coalition appeared to be targeting insurgents hiding inside a madrasa (Islamic school). "Helicopters bombed the madrasa and some of the Taliban ran from there into people's homes. Then those homes were bombed," Mr Ikhlaf, his clothes stained with blood, told Reuters news agency at a hospital in Kandahar.

Zurmina Bibi cradled a baby in her arms and wept as she described how 10 people were killed in her home, including three or four children. "There were dead people everywhere," she said.

The violence may be just a taste of what promises to be a long, hot summer for British and other western troops in southern Afghanistan. On July 31, Nato will assume command of the six southern provinces from the US. Britain has deployed about two-thirds of its Helmand force, while 2,200 Canadians are already stationed in Kandahar. The Taliban seem to be spoiling for a fight. US commanders say insurgents have crossed in large numbers from Pakistan and are clustered in remote corners of northern Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan provinces, where 1,500 Dutch soldiers are deploying. "This will go on for weeks if not months," said one western security official.

As the violence escalated, tensions deepened with Pakistan. A foreign ministry spokeswoman, Tasnim Aslam, rejected Afghan claims that the Taliban were recruiting, training and coordinating attack missions from within Pakistan. "The Afghan government's failure to deal with the situation cannot be placed at Pakistan's door," she told a news conference.

    US warplanes kill scores of Taliban in worst Afghan clashes for years, NYT, 23.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1780967,00.html

2.30pm

Harrier jets to stay in Afghanistan

Tuesday April 25, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies


The defence secretary, John Reid, announced a u-turn today, confirming that a squadron of RAF Harrier fighter jets will stay in southern Afghanistan to support British troops.

The six jump jets had been due to end their deployment at Kandahar air base in June but Mr Reid, who was visiting the air base today, said they would now remain until next year.

Less than three weeks ago, MPs on the cross-party Commons defence committee said they were "deeply concerned" at plans to withdraw the Harriers just as a major British taskforce was beginning a new mission in the dangerous Helmand province.

Taliban militants have stepped up suicide attacks and roadside bombings against international forces in recent weeks, particularly in the south, and there is also a growing threat from drug barons.

BBC News reported Taliban fighters as saying they plan to specifically target and kill British troops, who they called an " old enemy of Afghanistan".

The BBC also reported that insurgents were trying to recruit more militants from over the border with Pakistan.

From next month more than 3,000 British troops, led by 16 Air Assault Brigade, will be based in Helmand in an effort to maintain security, train the Afghan army and fight the drugs trade. At the moment there are around 2,000 British troops in the country.

Last week the defence committee described the security situation in Helmand as "increasingly fragile".

The province has 4,500 square miles of inaccessible mountain plain and desert, where remote areas can be reached quicker by the Harriers. If the jets had been removed British troops would still have received support from US and Dutch air power and their own Apache helicopters.

The cost of the extended deployment will be in the region of £20m and comes after commanders on the ground said they needed the GR7 Harriers for close air support.

Speaking next to one of the jump jets at Kandahar airbase, Mr Reid said that in the last 48 hours, just as he arrived in the country, the jets had been involved in "robust action" providing close air support to troops.

"One of the things they wanted to look again at was the extension of the Harrier deployment here because they are an absolutely essential tool in the effectiveness of our Armed Forces here," Mr Reid said.

"Of course that costs a bit of money but it is money well spent to protect our troops and the country."

Mr Reid said he had told the Treasury what was required and that had been accepted.

"I have therefore decided we will extend the deployment here at least until next year so we can make sure our troops have the air cover and firepower necessary if anyone decides that they want to take them on."

The Harriers currently at Kandahar are from No 1 (Fighter) Squadron based at RAF Cottesmore.

    Harrier jets to stay in Afghanistan, G, 25.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,1761076,00.html

British face 20-year war to tame Taliban

March 19, 2006
The Sunday Times
Christina Lamb

THE objectives of the British mission to Afghanistan could take as long as 20 years to achieve, according to a confidential Ministry of Defence briefing seen by The Sunday Times.

The assessment by senior military officers highlights the risks to the 3,300 British troops to be deployed to the lawless Helmand province and warns that even in five years the best that can be hoped for in terms of security and stabilisation would be “interim status”.

The disclosure contrasts with assurances given to the Commons by John Reid, the defence secretary, that the mission will be completed in three years.

Questioned last month about the danger that British troops could end up bogged down in southern Afghanistan, Reid told MPs: “We will make our judgment on the basis of changes on the ground: extension of central government control, a reduction in insurgency, growth of the Afghan security forces and economic development.

“The exit strategy involves one of the entrance aims: the achievement of a degree of success in all those respects in a relatively short time — three years — in the south.”

However, the Ministry of Defence briefing — given to Nato allies involved in Afghanistan — reveals that it expects only an interim degree of success in five years in meeting these aims and in combating narcotics.

The “end game” is estimated to require 15 to 20 years, suggesting that British troops may be the country for far longer than acknowledged.

It is a view echoed by Colin Powell, the former American secretary of state. Last week he warned the Canadian government that its troops in southern Afghanistan should prepare for an “extended” military campaign and should not put a time limit on their stay.

He emphasised the deteriorating security, pointing out: “There are Taliban elements that want to continue the fight.” More than 1,700 people were killed in Taliban attacks last year and there has been a recent spate of suicide bombings.

Helmand is regarded as the centre of Taliban activity in Afghanistan. More than half the schools in the province have been closed down by attacks.

But Afghan intelligence reports suggest the military threat may not be as great as feared, with fewer than 300 Taliban fighters in Helmand under five local commanders. These are all under the control of Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban’s one-legged former intelligence chief, who is believed to be based across the Pakistani border in Quetta.

Apart from a “Taliban/Al-Qaeda backlash”, one of the main risks to British troops emphasised in the briefing is that of a “hostile backlash” to counter-narcotics activity.

Afghanistan is the biggest producer of opium and more than 90% of the heroin sold in the UK comes from there. Helmand is the centre of this production. Poppy cultivation in the province has doubled this year.

An operation that recently got under way to eradicate it before the May harvest is expected to create enormous resentment both among farmers who have no other livelihood and among drug barons, some of whom are related to senior government officials.

Military officers have expressed concern that the British forces will be arriving in the wake of this unpopular campaign. “How can we win over hearts and minds when we will clearly be associated by locals with the end of their incomes?” asked one.

The governor of Helmand, Engineer Daud, is furious that the British troops are not already in the province to provide back-up to police and contractors destroying the poppy fields.

“This is the real challenge,” he said. “In fighting against terrorism we are only fighting Al-Qaeda and Taliban, but in fighting against drugs we’re not just fighting them but also our own people. We can’t do this alone.”

An advance party of Royal Marines and Royal Engineers has arrived in Helmand as barracks are built in the main towns of Lashkar Gah and Grishk. But the main deployment of 16 Air Assault Brigade, including the 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment, has been delayed until the summer.

The mission, which will cost £1 billion over three years, will be backed up by air power, including six Chinook and four Lynx helicopters as well as by Britain’s first deployment of eight Apache attack helicopters. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said this weekend the troops and equipment would not be fully in place until July.

One senior officer admitted he was worried the slow build-up would play into the hands of the Taliban, whose propaganda claims western nations are frightened to move into southern Afghanistan and are thus endlessly delaying.

“We need to come in with a real show of power to show we mean business, not this drip-drip effect,” he said. “It makes us look vulnerable.”

Senior British officials privately concede that the biggest threat to the troops may well come from across the border in Pakistan, where Taliban are believed to receive their training and funding.

There have been high-level talks between Whitehall and Islamabad over the issue. It was also raised by President George W Bush with General Pervez Musharraf, his Pakistani counterpart.

Earlier this month President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan gave Musharraf addresses and telephone numbers for senior Taliban officials in Pakistan and demanded their arrest. The officials included Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader.

Karzai also alleged that the Pakistani military was involved in their training. A furious Musharraf dismissed the information, saying: “I feel there is a very, very deliberate attempt to malign Pakistan by some agents, and President Karzai is totally oblivious of what is happening in his own country.”

    British face 20-year war to tame Taliban, ST, 19.3.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2092461,00.html

Britain to commit nearly 6,000 troops to Afghanistan

· Reid says deployment needed to thwart Taliban
· Most will be based at heart of opium poppy area

Friday January 27, 2006
The Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor

Britain will deploy nearly 6,000 troops to Afghanistan - more than expected - over the next few months in the biggest and most hazardous military operation since the invasion of Iraq, the cabinet agreed yesterday.

Most of the troops will be based in Helmand province, hostile territory at the heart of the country's opium poppy area, in a three-year deployment costing £1bn.

John Reid, the defence secretary, admitted the dangers but said the risks were less than "handing back Afghanistan to the Taliban and terrorists". He added that 90% of the heroin reaching Britain's streets came from Afghanistan.

He said the chiefs of staff had told him the deployment was manageable and did not depend on reducing the number of British troops - now about 8,500 - in Iraq.

There are already some 1,000 British troops in Afghanistan. The total will peak at 5,700 in the summer, falling back to about 4,700 when engineers have built the British base at Lashkar Gar, capital of Helmand province. The British taskforce will consist of the Colchester-based 16 Air Assault Brigade, including 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment. For the first time, US-designed, British-made Apache attack helicopters will be deployed.

The brigade is part of Afghanistan's Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), to be commanded by a British general, Sir David Richards, with the support of some 1,000 British soldiers based in Kabul. Isaf's job is peacekeeping and "nation building", including training a new Afghan army and helping to restructure the country's economy.

However, MPs here and in other Nato countries are concerned about the force's rules of engagement and its relationship with Operation Enduring Freedom, the US forces engaged in anti-terrorist operations against al-Qaida and Taliban suspects. Specifically, tension could arise over the use of US aircraft and bombing tactics.

Mr Reid admitted yesterday that it might be difficult to keep the two missions apart. "We do not go there with the primary purpose of waging war," and British troops were "not primarily counter-terrorist in the sense of seeking out and destroying terrorists". However, he added that they had "robust" rules of engagement and they would defend themselves if attacked by terrorists or insurgents.

MPs last week expressed concern that suspects seized by British troops might be rendered elsewhere for interrogation, including Guantánamo Bay. Mr Reid would only say that detainees would be handed over to the Afghan authorities under a memorandum of understanding.

He said British troops would also be involved in counter-narcotics, further complicating their mission with potentially dangerous consequences. Though President Hamid Karzai recently got rid of the governor of Helmand because of his links to the drug trade, the Ministry of Defence told MPs last week: "The narcotics trade influences senior levels in the [Afghan] government and effectively controls some of the provincial administration".

An advance party of military intelligence officers is understood to have reported a dangerous mix of an opium poppy trade linked to warlords, and Taliban and al-Qaida fighters regrouping and switching to suicide bombing tactics.

Aid organisations have expressed concern that Nato troops should not interfere with humanitarian work. Care International said: "There are high expectations of the British military to avoid the past mistakes of US and other troops, which have to some extent fuelled insecurity".

Mr Reid said that if the Dutch parliament next month decided not to deploy 1,400 troops as planned, Britain would not plug the gap. But he was confident other Nato countries would do so if necessary. British troops in southern Afghanistan will also be joined by Canadian forces and possibly by soldiers from Denmark, Australia, New Zealand and Estonia.

At a glance

The cabinet has committed nearly 6,000 troops to Afghanistan, most based in Helmand, a hostile, opium poppy growing region in the south of the country. The 3,000-plus strong taskforce to be based there consists of 16 Air Assault Brigade, based in Colchester and comprising 3 Para, backed up by artillery, helicopters and transport aircraft. Other British troops will form the headquarters of the Nato-led security assistance force based in Kabul. Their tasks are peacekeeping, nation-building, and counter-narcotics. They are supposed to be entirely separate from US-led combat counter-terrorist operations against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.

    Britain to commit nearly 6,000 troops to Afghanistan, G, 27.1.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,1696049,00.html

4pm update

UK to deploy 4,150 extra troops to Afghanistan

Thursday January 26, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver


A peak of 5,700 British troops will be deployed in Afghanistan in the coming months, the defence secretary, John Reid, announced today.

Mr Reid admitted the troops - who will be on a mission to protect civilians and deter terrorists - would face risks, but told the Commons the bigger than anticipated deployment was needed to help curb the huge narcotics industry and provide security.

The UK's military presence in Afghanistan, which currently stands at around 850 troops, will increase dramatically, with around 3,300 extra combat troops being sent to the lawless southern province of Helmand by July.

A forward team of around 850 engineers will begin building an encampment for the new task force in Lashkar Gar, the capital of Helmand, next month. The area is dominated by the opium trade.

The US troops currently stationed in the south, who are focusing on purely counter-terrorism operations - have been targeted by suicide bombers.

Mr Reid said the "potent" UK force, which will include attack helicopters, would briefly peak at 5,700, falling to less than 4,700 when the engineers had finished their work.

He said it was vital "we put the right forces in to do the job and do it safely and well", and told MPs the risks faced by troops were "as compared to the dangers to our country and our people of allowing Afghanistan to fall back into the clutches of the Taliban and the terrorists."

The mission, which will last for two years, would cost £1bn over five years, he said.

In 2004, the UK agreed to take command of the Nato International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan this May. The British general Sir David Richards will establish a command post in the capital, Kabul.

Britain will also be in command of a forward support base in the southern city of Kandahar.

The British task force will include troops from the 16th Air Assault Brigade and an airborne infantry battle group, including eight Apache attack helicopters.

A small number of reservists, mostly drawn from the Royal Rifle Volunteers and the Parachute regiment, will also be involved.

Nato, which took over Isaf from the US in 2003, has until now been patrolling the relatively peaceful north of the country, but is expanding its operations southwards.

The are currently 9,500 Nato troops in the country but this number will grow to more than 16,000 as the alliance takes over security control for three quarters of Afghanistan throughout the year.

Britain and Canada will contribute the most troops to the increase in Nato numbers. UK ministers are awaiting the results of a vote in the Dutch parliament on February 2 which will decide whether 1,200 Dutch troops will also be committed.

Mr Reid said Australia and New Zealand could also make new commitments of troops to Afghanistan.

He stressed the need to help rebuild the country and create a "real alternative" to opium harvesting, which provides 90% of the heroin on Britain's streets.

The Tory defence spokesman, Dr Liam Fox, said the Nato mission embraced "noble ideas" which his party supported, but warned it would hold the government to account for any failures in policy.

Some aid organisations said it was important that the British troops should not interfere with humanitarian work.

"There are high expectations of the British military to avoid the past mistakes of US and other troops, which have to some extent fuelled insecurity," a statement from Care International said.

    UK to deploy 4,150 extra troops to Afghanistan, G, 26.1.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,1695561,00.html

4,000 troops to be sent to troubled Afghan province

January 25, 2006
The Times
By Philip Webster, Political Editor

THOUSANDS of British combat troops are expected to be sent to one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan. John Reid, the Defence Secretary, is said to be ready to announce that 4,000 soldiers from 16 Air Assault Brigade, built around the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, will be sent to the Helmand province to help with its reconstruction. There are about 1,000 British troops in Afghanistan now. The influx will be cut to 3,500 when engineers complete camp building.

Officially the role of the new troops will be to help the Afghan Government with provincial reconstruction, but ministers expect that they may be deployed against al-Qaeda groups and drug barons.

Apache helicopter gunships and Merlin and Chinook helicopters will accompany them, along with Harrier jets. The decision to send the Parachute Regiment underlines the risks of the mission. They will take over from US forces and lead a new Nato force.

Soldiers are now training on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, and learning about Afghanistan and its culture. Mr Reid will visit them before they embark.

Ministers have said that the rise in suicide bombings in Afghanistan is of great concern. Al-Qaeda forces have killed 100 US soldiers and thousands of civilians, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda group in Iraq is believed to have set up a new insurgency unit in southern Afghanistan.

The escalation in suicide attacks has raised alarm within Nato, which believes that the Taleban and its supporters are targeting southern Afghanistan because of the alliance’s plan to move into the region by spring, increasing the number of international troops in the country from 10,000 to 16,000.

Since the new year there has been a spate of suicide attacks, with one bomber killing at least 20 people in Spin Buldak on January 16. Another bomber killed three in Kandahar, including a Canadian diplomat, a day before.

There has been growing concern among member countries, particularly in the Netherlands, over extra troops. MPs on the Commons Defence Select Committee aired misgivings last week about sending British troops to Helmand, home to opium barons and one of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan. The Paras will be expected to launch operations against them.

    4,000 troops to be sent to troubled Afghan province, T, 25.1.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2009117,00.html

The Guardian > Special Report > Afghanistan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/0,,548335,00.html