PM says Afghan soldiers must hold ground taken by British forces
Gordon Brown has told the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to put more Afghan troops into Helmand province immediately to make sure the costly territorial gains made by UK forces are not lost and British soldiers do not die in vain.
Amid mounting political pressure on the government over the sharp rise in British fatalities this month, Brown issued his demand to Karzai in a phone conversation on Sunday after talks with the US president, Barack Obama.
Less than 10% of the 80,000-strong Afghan army are stationed in Helmand even though 50% of the fighting is being conducted in the Taliban stronghold.
British forces have been repeatedly frustrated that they capture vital ground only for it to be ceded within months due to the lack of Afghan soldiers to move in and take control. There are only 500 Afghan troops involved in the British Operation Panther’s Claw in Helmand province.
Brown said bluntly he wanted to see “a very substantial increase” in Afghan troop numbers.
He also gave a strong indication that the British presence will remain at the current figure of just over 9,000 troops, or might even increase after the Afghan presidential elections in August and a US-led 60-day review of the entire Nato Afghan strategy. Britain is also temporarily sending an extra 140 soldiers from Cyprus.
The US-led review is likely to see General Stanley A McChrystal, the new senior commander in Afghanistan, recommend that the Afghan army will have to grow even faster than the planned expansion from 85,000 to 134,000, which was initially expected to take five years but now fast-tracked for completion by 2011.
US marines, currently deploying to Helmand, have been struck by the lack of support from the Afghan army.
The Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch Brown recently highlighted the UK’s concern, saying: “We need to look at some slightly out-of-the-box solutions to supplement the numbers we have who are willing to protect communities from Taliban activity.”
There is also a growing worry that the presidential election in August will fall way short of a democratic poll, with some observers fearing ballot rigging that will make the recent Iranian elections look like a model of western democracy.
In a Commons statement today, Brown brushed aside Conservative and Liberal Democrat claims that British troops are dying due to insufficient troop numbers or resources. He said: “It has been a very difficult summer and it is not over yet but if we are to deny Helmand to the Taliban in the long term, if we are to defeat this insurgency, and by doing so make Britain and the world a safer place, then we must persist with our operations in Afghanistan … I am confident that we are right to be in Afghanistan, that we have the strongest possible plan.”
But a Populus poll for ITV’s News at Ten found 75% of the population believe that the troops are inadequately supplied and equipped for the war.
The Tories claim there is a shortage of helicopters and blame Brown for cutting the helicopter budget by £1.4bn in 2004.
It was noticeable that the Tories reined back on some of their rhetoric today, but the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, said the government strategy was “over-ambitious and under-resourced”.
Brown said the British military had told him that they had sufficient troops for current operational requirements. He also denied that any helicopter shortfall had led to the recent British deaths.
Lieutenant Colonel Nick Richardson, an army spokesman, offered Downing Street a measure of support, saying: “You could put as many helicopters as you wanted in here, but sadly at the end of the day troops have to go on the ground. You cannot defeat the enemy from a helicopter.”
