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More helicopters ‘would save lives’

July 17th, 2009 | No Comments

Sir Jock Stirrup says military is ‘busting a gut’ to draft more of the vehicles into service

The deployment of more helicopters in Afghanistan would save soldiers’ lives, the head of the armed forces said today.

Sir Jock Stirrup, the chief of the defence staff, said his forces needed as many helicopters as they could get and were “busting a gut” to draft more into service.

His comments came as the British death toll in Afghanistan continued to rise as another soldier was killed in an explosion while on foot patrol.

Speaking in Downing Street after talks with Gordon Brown, Stirrup said: “In this situation where you have lots of improvised explosive devices, the more you can increase your tactical flexibility by moving people by helicopters then the more unpredictable your movements become to the enemy. Therefore it is quite patently the case that you could save casualties by doing that.”

But he warned that helicopters were “not invulnerable either”, adding: “There is no panacea to this problem.”

Asked about the row over whether British forces in Afghanistan had enough helicopters, the air chief marshal said there was “no such thing as enough helicopters in an operational campaign”.

“If you are an operational commander you can always do more and do things better the more helicopters you have,” he went on.

“If I thought we had enough helicopters in Afghanistan frankly we wouldn’t be busting a gut to get the Merlins we had deployed in Iraq ready to go out this time to Afghanistan. We wouldn’t be working as hard as we are to try to get these eight Chinooks that have been sitting on the ground unusable for years into a condition where we can deploy them next year.

“We need as many helicopters out there as we can get.”

Stirrup insisted that the current force size in Afghanistan was a “baseline”.

“We are at 9,000; that is our baseline. After the elections we will see what else we can do.”

He said he had put chief of the general staff Sir Richard Dannatt’s “shopping list” of extra equipment for operations in Afghanistan to Brown during their talks.

“The prime minister was very interested in that and we will be looking at that as a matter of urgency,” he added.

Stirrup said news of the latest British fatality in Helmand province was “extremely sad”.

“We said that this is going to be a hard summer of fighting in Afghanistan, and that is how it is turning out to be. But it is also a very successful summer of fighting,” he said.

“We are taking away from the Taliban some of their vital ground, and they are desperately trying to stop us taking it away from them. And they are failing.”

Downing Street said Dannatt’s recommendations would be looked at “very seriously”.

“There will be an internal process in the Ministry of Defence to look at how these recommendations can be implemented,” a spokesman said.

He added: “Of course we will look at this very seriously.”

The spokesman refused to say how any changes would be funded.

“The recommendations will be looked at by the Ministry of Defence in the normal way and they will look at both the impact on the Ministry of Defence budget and the urgent operational requirements.

“But I’m not at this stage going to make a judgment on where they will be resourced from.”

Stirrup and the prime minister spoke for 40 minutes this morning.

The Downing Street spokesman said it was “entirely normal” that the head of the army should return from Afghanistan with recommendations.

“The chief of the general staff, the chief of the defence staff, the prime minister and government ministers are working very hard to ensure that our troops and commanders on the ground have what they need to ensure they can carry out their operations successfully,” he added.

Dannatt said this morning that a planned reduction in troop numbers from 9,000 after the Afghan elections this year would be the “wrong thing to do”.

“There is a thought out there that, from 9,000 that we are growing up to, that it might come down to 8,300,” he said. “My observation from looking at this operation over the last couple of days is that would be the wrong thing to do.”

He warned that the UK may even have to increase its military presence in Afghanistan if the case for a “short-term uplift” is made by the United States.

General Stanley McChrystal, the new US military commander in Afghanistan, is conducting a review.

Dannatt, who is retiring as chief of the general staff this month, said: “There may well be a case for what I would call a short-term uplift. Let’s not use the ‘surge’ word; that’s sort of been worked to extinction in Iraq previously.

“But there may well be a case – and our government will have to confront it if asked – for about 12 to 18 months while the Afghan national army can get the right strength down here, for us to uplift.

“It would be the right thing in the short term for us to stay at 9,000. Down to 8,300 would be wrong – militarily I’m quite clear about that, and, as a member of the chiefs of staff committee, I couldn’t sign up to that now.”

Lady Taylor, the junior defence minister, said Britain had enough troops in Afghanistan for the task and she was not aware that the armed forces had requested any equipment that the government had not provided.

Speaking on a tour of a BAE Systems munitions factory near Usk, Monmouthshire, Taylor said: “The head of the army has been giving us his views for the last few years while he has been in charge, and we have responded and the Treasury responded to the urgent operational requirements that we need.

“I don’t know of anything that the armed forces have asked for that we’ve not been able to provide by way of equipment. And if you talk to people who are on the frontline on operations they will tell you that the equipment that the British military has is the best that they have ever had in their history.

“We are not complacent. We still want to improve it further because we need to keep developing it to keep one step ahead of everybody else.”

She said troop levels were under “constant review”. “What we have got are the troops we need for the task that we are doing at the moment,” she said.

“It is a difficult phase. We’ve sent extra troops because we know we are in the run-up to the elections and we know that the insurgents are trying to disrupt those elections.”

She said UK forces could share helicopters with their allies in Afghanistan.

“I think there are some simplistic approaches taken sometimes about helicopters, because whilst helicopters are extremely important there are lots of things they can’t do and they can be vulnerable.

“They can’t help if you want to get somewhere quietly at night for a surprise attack. They can’t help you to hold the ground that you have taken and that’s very important in the phase that we are in.”

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Troops need more, says Army head

July 17th, 2009 | No Comments

General Sir Richard Dannatt (right)

The head of the UK Army has said better equipment is needed to protect troops from roadside bombs in Afghanistan.

General Sir Richard Dannatt told the BBC troops "needed more" and added that he would be compiling a shopping list of what was required.

Gordon Brown has repeatedly insisted the Army has enough equipment and denied claims of a helicopter shortage.

The general’s comments will be seen as careful "parting shots", says the BBC’s defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt.

Gen Dannatt gave his interview as he prepared to step down as head of the British Army next month.

"We need more and that will be a shopping list that I’ll bring back"

General Sir Richard Dannatt

Our correspondent says Gen Dannatt has long been "a vocal advocate" of the need for the nation to take care of the welfare of its Armed Forces.

In return for their service, he says more money needs to be spent on equipment for British forces in Afghanistan

The general, who is on his last trip to Afghanistan before he stands down, earlier reportedly angered Downing Street when he made it clear he had been flown in an American helicopter, thus making clear no British alternative had been available.

In response, ministers have pointed out that all coalition helicopters in Afghanistan are available for use by all NATO allies.

Last week the outspoken general drew fire when comments he made about the presence of UK troops in Iraq were interpreted as "unconstitutional".

Now his recent comments about the alleged shortage of equipment in Afghanistan have hit a raw nerve in a month in which 15 British soldiers have died in Helmand – 12 killed by roadside bombs.

Extra troops

The sensitivity of the subject was underlined on Thursday, when the prime minister avoided giving a direct answer to a committee of MPs as to whether he had received or rejected a request for an extra 2000 troops in Helmand.

HAVE YOUR SAY

" Helicopters are essential in any war where the enemy is laying mines or IEDs. To say otherwise is a clear signal that Gordon Brown does not value the lives of British servicemen and women"

Roger Hart, Deal

Send us your comments

But while Gen Dannatt has previously called for more "boots on the ground", he has stressed the extra resources could be British, American or Afghan.

In his latest interview he said that surveillance of the Taliban needed to be improved so that the Army could see where the bombs were being laid.

Gen Dannatt added: "We need more, and that will be a shopping list that I’ll bring back."

The big increase in UK casualties has come as coalition troops conduct a military offensive designed to increase security ahead of Afghan elections next month.

So far, 184 UK service personnel have now died in Afghanistan since 2001 – more than the 179 who were killed during the war in Iraq. </p

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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Taliban: Will Kill Captured US Soldier If Military Ops Continue

July 16th, 2009 | No Comments

KABUL — Local Taliban commanders threatened Thursday to kill a captured American soldier unless the U.S. military stops operations in two districts of southeastern Afghanistan.

The Taliban claimed last week to be holding the soldier, wh…

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Simon Jenkins: Britain Must Tell Obama: The Alliance of Denial Has to End

July 15th, 2009 | No Comments

President Obama now owns Afghanistan. As a result, he and his British ally, Gordon Brown, are sucked into mendacity that is on the scale of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

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Helicopter shortage ‘risking troops’

July 15th, 2009 | No Comments

Ministers will come under intense pressure tomorrow over their handling of Britain’s military operations in Afghanistan when an influential committee of MPs challenges Gordon Brown’s insistence that a lack of helicopters has not cost lives.

With General Sir Richard Dannatt, head of the army, openly calling for more “boots on the ground”, the Commons defence select committee is expected to rush out a damning report that is likely to say the shortage of helicopters has increased the danger to British soldiers

The report’s publication is being speeded up in time for a parliamentary debate on Afghanistan and the prime minister’s appearance in front of the liaison committee of MPs. The shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox, has been criticising Brown for cutting the helicopter budget by £1.4bn in 2004.

The committee will say that the lack of helicopters has restricted the ability of British forces to undertake potentially valuable operations. It will also reject claims that an increase in flying hours overcomes the problems, as a helicopter can only be in one place at one time. The report will also suggest that a larger helicopter fleet would allow forces to undertake operations by flight rather than on more dangerous operations by foot.

The committee will challenge the Whitehall decision to renovate old Puma and Sea King helicopters, arguing that it would have been better to buy new Merlin helicopters that would have cost little more and been available sooner. Overall the report will claim the government is planning to cut the number of helicopters by as many as 100 by 2020.

The MPs strongly criticised the lack of helicopters in hearings leading to tomorrow’s report. They said they had heard that on visits to Afghanistan “every brigade commander in Helmand has lamented the lack of sufficient helicopters”.

Today it emerged that Dannatt is being flown around Afghanistan in an American Black Hawk helicopter. “If I moved in an American helicopter, it’s because I haven’t got a British helicopter,” he said.

Challenged over the shortage of helicopters in the Commons today by David Cameron, the prime minister referred to the recent high death toll in a big offensive against Taliban fighters.

“I think that we should look at this particular operation, Operation Panther’s Claw, and be absolutely clear that it is not an absence of helicopters that has cost the loss of lives,” he said.

Lord Guthrie, former chief of the defence staff, told the Guardian that it was disingenuous of the government to say British forces had enough helicopters in Afghanistan. He has said fewer British soldiers would have died if they had more helicopters.

Asked whether a shortage of helicopters was putting soldiers’ lives at risk, Gen Sir Mike Jackson, a former head of the army, told the BBC: “If a commander wanted to make a manoeuvre by air and couldn’t because there weren’t available helicopters and was forced therefore to do it on the ground against his own judgment, then yes, that would arguably be the case.”

Dannatt further increased pressure on the government by saying more “boots on the ground” were key to success in Helmand and that he would like to see “more energy” put into speeding up the supply of equipment to British troops.

Asked whether they have the equipment they need, he said: “It has probably not moved as fast as I would have liked … but we are increasing the numbers.”

He said: “We can have effect where we have boots on the ground. I don’t mind whether the feet in those boots are British, American or Afghan, but we need more to have the persistent effect to give the people confidence in us. That is the top line and the bottom line.”

Brown said at prime minister’s questions that President Hamid Karzai had acceeded to his request to send more Afghan troops to Helmand province to back up UK and US forces. The prime minister’s spokesman also indicated more strongly than before that the British troop presence is likely to remain at the current higher number of 9,000 troops after the Afghan preisdential elections, and that the extra troops will be detailed to train the growing Afghan army and police.

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‘It was like Saving Private Ryan’

July 15th, 2009 | No Comments

Trooper Anthony Matthews describes being hit and having to apply tourniquet during Afghanistan offensive

A British soldier injured in fierce fighting in the biggest offensive against the Taliban since the start of the conflict in 2001 has given a first-hand account of his ordeal.

Trooper Anthony Matthews, 20, of the Light Dragoons, was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade during Operation Panther’s Claw in Helmand province last week. He described how he managed to apply a tourniquet to his leg wound and to that of an injured comrade as he returned gunfire.

On that day, 7 July, Matthews’s close friend Christopher Whiteside, 22, was killed by an improvised bomb in a separate operation in Gereshk.

The number of British soldiers seriously wounded rose significantly last month, according to figures released todayby the Ministry of Defence. A total of 13 were “very seriously” or “seriously” wounded in action, with their lives being “imminently in danger” or their injuries a cause for “immediate concern”.

A further 46 soldiers were admitted to field hospitals last month. However, the figures do not reveal the total number of soldiers with injuries conventionally regarded as serious, including the loss of limbs. The figures for July are likely to be worse, defence officials acknowledge.

Matthews, nicknamed “Bulletproof Tony”, has returned home to Dunston, Gateshead, with a cricket ball-sized wound after a month of fighting that has claimed the lives of 17 British soldiers.

Recovering from surgery to the blast wound on his left leg, Matthews said he had feared for his own life.

He said: “There aren’t many people can tell the tale of getting hit by a grenade. I’ve just been very lucky. We came out of the compound we had taken over, and there was a tree line that we used as cover. My mates were beside me at either side, and then all I remember is hearing a massive bang.

“There was dirt all over their faces and they were screaming. It was like a scene out of Saving Private Ryan. My ears had gone and I looked at my friend and I could see he had been hit badly. I turned and looked down at my leg and my pants were all broken. I put a tourniquet on while I was still shooting.”

The Light Dragoons were based near Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. During the early hours of 7 July, his platoon stepped into an ambush. A rocket-propelled grenade seriously wounded Matthews and his friend, Trooper Aaron Bradley.

“When the bullets are whizzing past it’s terrifying,” said Matthews. “They sound like bees flying past your ears, and then you hear them land and it sounds like someone clapping their hands.”

After being hit, he said, “it was just adrenaline. I didn’t feel anything. I stabbed myself with morphine and held on until the helicopters came. They got us back to Camp Bastion in four minutes.”

After treatment there he was flown to Birmingham’s Selly Oak hospital, where an operation sealed a deep wound across the back of his left leg. A few days before he was hit by the grenade, Matthews had been on a foot patrol behind a Scimitar tank which was blown up by a roadside bomb. His arms were hit by shrapnel.

He said: “No one was killed or even injured badly that time, amazingly. A team came out to clear the area and make sure it wasn’t a ‘daisy chain’, where a number of bombs are linked to a single command and control wire.

“It’s proper war out there. One time it took us from first light until last light just to move 800 metres. We were in constant contact with the enemy.”

His house was decked out in Union flags to welcome him home, and he is now recuperating alongside his mother, Karine, brother Kallum, 13, and girlfriend Sam, 20.

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Act now over Afghanistan, says Cameron

July 15th, 2009 | No Comments

Tory leader says the government should act to reduce the number of lives lost in war against Taliban

David Cameron today told Gordon Brown he had to provide more leadership to reduce the numbers of British lives lost in Afghanistan.

In the last prime minister’s question time before the summer recess, the Conservative leader said the government should “show greater urgency and make more visible progress” in Afghanistan and said forces needed a more tightly defined mission.

This month 15 British soldiers have died in Afghanistan, taking the death toll to 184, more than that of the Iraq war.

Cameron also accused the government of failing to provide enough helicopters. He told Brown: “The number of helicopters we have in Afghanistan is simply insufficient.” Britain had fewer than 30 in Helmand while the Americans, with similar numbers of troops, had 100.

But as he and Cameron traded quotes by military figures on the issue, Brown said: “We have done everything we can to increase the numbers of helicopters and there will be more helicopters on the ground … While the loss of life is tragic and sad, it is not to do with helicopters.” The budget for helicopters was £6bn over the next 10 years.

The prime minister added: “The purpose of our mission is very clear: to prevent terrorism coming to the streets of Britain.”

Brown said that Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, had responded favourably to his request that the Kabul government provide more police and soldiers in Helmand. “President Karzai has promised that he will provide additional resources to do that.” After October, Britain will provide more training to the Afghan security services, he said.

The head of the British army said earlier today that more coalition troops were needed in Helmand to provide the security for its people to go back to their ordinary lives.

General Sir Richard Dannatt said that “more boots on the ground” were key to success in Helmand, though he stressed that it did not matter whether they belonged to British, American or Afghan troops.

At PMQs, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, accused Brown of promising lots but doing nothing on bankers’ bonuses, the recession and cleaning up parliament. It was just “business as usual”, Clegg said.

Brown said the opposition parties should go away over the summer and reflect on why they had no policies to deal with the big issues facing Britain.

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General urges bigger Helmand force

July 15th, 2009 | No Comments

General Sir Richard Dannatt says success in Helmand can only be achieved with more British, US or Afghan troops

The head of the British army said that more coalition troops were needed in the Afghan province of Helmand to provide the security for its people to go back to their ordinary lives.

General Sir Richard Dannatt said that “more boots on the ground” were key to success in Helmand, though he stressed that it did not matter whether they belonged to British, American or Afghan troops.

Dannatt, paying his last visit to Afghanistan before retiring later this month, also said he would like to see “more energy” put into speeding up the provision of equipment to UK troops.

He was transported around Afghanistan by a US Black Hawk helicopter from a pool of resources shared by British and American forces, and said it was important that the UK was able to put as much into that pool as it took out.

“I have said before, we can have effect where we have boots on the ground. I don’t mind whether the feet in those boots are British, American or Afghan, but we need more to have the persistent effect to give the people [of Helmand] confidence in us,” Dannatt told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.

In the town of Sangin, the scene of fighting between British troops and the Taliban over recent years, control had been imposed to such an extent that local people were willing to bring their goods to what is now a bustling market, he said. That could only be maintained by a security presence on the ground.

Asked whether Britain’s 9,100-strong force in Afghanistan has the equipment it needs, Dannatt said: “We have got a plan to increase the amount of campaign equipment we have got. It has probably not moved as fast as I would have liked it to have moved, but we are increasing the numbers.

“I would like to get more energy behind it if we possibly can.”

Noting that he was being transported in a US helicopter, Dannatt said: “There is a pool and we share the assets, but we have got to put as much into the pool as we take out.

“We are reworking a number of Chinook helicopters – eight – which will come on line soon, and a number of Merlins that were previously in Iraq … Air mobility is a key enabler and I know the commanders need a lot of that.”

After 15 British deaths so far this month in Afghanistan, Dannatt said it was “a sad fact and part of reality” that casualties would occur during operations to tackle the Taliban insurgency.

“Of course, we do the absolute maximum we can to protect our people and give them as good equipment as we can, but we are pushing to increase our influence and increase the number of people who are exposed to our influence,” he said. “When we push, inevitably there is a possibility of taking casualties.”

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Pride and anger for dead soldiers

July 15th, 2009 | No Comments

Prime minister’s absence criticised by onlookers

The eight soldiers killed in the most deadly 24 hours of British operations in Afghanistan were repatriated today amid emotional scenes before hundreds of onlookers in a Wiltshire market town.

The bodies of the men, including three 18-year-olds, were driven in a cortege along a packed high street in Wootton Bassett, whose residents have borne witness over the last two years to the increasing bloodshed in Afghanistan.

The bodies were brought home in front of a guard of honour formed by colleagues and veterans as the government announced said 140 troops from the 2nd Battalion Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, currently based in Cyprus, would be deployed to Helmand province to join the Operation Panther’s Claw offensive under way against the Taliban. A 700-strong battalion deployed to Afghanistan as reinforcements to bolster security before the presidential elections next month is also expected to remain there longer as part of the government’s review of the British military presence in the country.

As the tenor bell of St Bartholomew’s church tolled to mark their return, the assembled townspeople fell silent to witness the human cost of the recent hand-to-hand combat in Helmand, which the defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth, has said is unavoidable if the British military are to rout the Taliban.

The hearses passed one by one, each with a coffin tightly bound in a union flag. At one point, the silence was broken by the family of Corporal Jonathan Horne, 28, who was killed by a roadside bomb near Sangin as he tried to rescue his comrades from an earlier blast. Horne’s brother, Andy Lowe, 25, ran out with members of his family and friends to the hearse. They threw red roses on top and one said: “Love you, man.” “At the back of my mind, I always feared it could be JJ, but I didn’t want to think about it,” Lowe said. “All I was thinking about was when he was due to come home in a few weeks and going down town for a couple of drinks.”

Flowers were tossed from rooftops and the roadside and a football shirt was thrown on to another hearse as a ripple of applause spread through the crowd. When the cortege moved on, the tears came. Group after group were huddled together, eyes filled with tears, saying very little, only to comfort the most grief stricken.

Eight families were grieving and many more friends too.

Rifleman James Backhouse, 18, had been due to return home on leave today to his family in West Yorkshire. The family of Rifleman William Aldridge, 18, who died in a roadside blast, sat beneath homemade bunting carrying his picture and the words “Our lad”.

Rifleman Joseph Murphy, 18, was killed carrying Rifleman Daniel Simpson, 20, away from a blast. Corporal Lee Scott, 26, died in an explosion on the same day just north of Nad-e-Ali. Private John Brackpool, 27, was shot at Char-e-Anjir, near Lashkar Gah, while on sentry duty and Rifleman Daniel Hume, 22, was killed in an explosion while on foot patrol.

The day had begun at noon, when the C17 cargo plane bearing the coffins flew low over the cemetery of St Michael and the Angels at Lyneham, home of the RAF base, before banking to complete a flypast above Wiltshire and Oxfordshire, where country pubs flew flags at half-mast.

Waiting in the VIP area of the base were the families. There was time for a moment of private grief in the chapel of rest before a more public repatriation in Wootton Bassett.

The hearses that today crawled down the high street brought to 184 the number of British troops killed, more than the death toll in Iraq. Veterans, uniformed soldiers, leather-clad bikers and the general public were touched by anger and pride. There was anger at the age of the soldiers dying and the absence of a government minister to see them return, and pride at the servicemen’s role in a war to tackle terrorism.

David Sinclair, 20, a shopworker from Maidenhead, came to see his schoolfriend, Rifleman Dan Hume, be repatriated.

“The age of the soldiers dying is sickening,” he said. “This shouldn’t be about money. They have not been given the proper equipment. We shouldn’t be in this war in the first place, but now we are there, we have to sort out what we are doing.”

“Gordon Brown has never met a coffin off a plane,” said John Lawton, 42, a former corporal in the Royal Green Jackets.

“It is his lot that sent us there and he couldn’t even be bothered to come to see them back. Bush has met coffins, Obama has met coffins, but this has become an embarrassment for the government.”

Helena Tym, 48, the mother of Cyrus Thatcher, a 19-year-old rifleman who was killed by a roadside bomb in Helmand six weeks ago, said she felt pride as well as grief in her loss.

“This turnout shows it’s not just us as families that feel that, but also the whole nation,” she said.

“As soon as you hear that awful sentence on the TV news ‘the family has been informed’, you know how they feel. It just hurts all over again.”

Thatcher’s father, Robin, 49, said he believed in the war, but the increasing numbers of dead should force a rethink of tactics. “It may take these eight deaths for Gordon Brown to think something should be done,” he said.

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Bodies of eight soldiers return to UK

July 14th, 2009 | No Comments

Families see bodies carried from aircraft at RAF Lyneham as Prince Edward pays respects to dead soldiers

The bodies of eight British soldiers killed during the army’s bloodiest 24 hours in Afghanistan arrived back in the UK today.

The coffins of the men, three of whom were 18, arrived draped in union flags just after noon at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire.

The families of the men were there to see their bodies carried from the CI7 aircraft. Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, was also at the base in his capacity as royal colonel of the 2nd Battalion The Rifles, with which five of the dead men served. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said he “wanted to pay his respects to those soldiers who sadly died”.

A private ceremony at the chapel of rest is being held this afternoon, before eight hearses drive through the Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett, where crowds are already gathering to pay tribute to the men.

Five soldiers from 2nd Battalion The Rifles died near Sangin, in Helmand province, on Friday, in two “daisy-chain” explosions.

Corporal Jonathan Horne, 28, and Riflemen William Aldridge, 18, James Backhouse, 18, and Joseph Murphy, 18, were rescuing comrades from an earlier blast when a second device detonated.

Murphy was carrying Rifleman Daniel Simpson, 20 – who was injured by the first makeshift bomb – when both were killed in the following explosion.

Aldridge, from Bromyard, Herefordshire, was attempting to reach casualties from the first blast, despite being wounded himself.

Also returning on the C17 plane will be Corporal Lee Scott, 26, of 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, who died in an explosion on the same day just north of Nad-e-Ali during Operation Panther’s Claw.

The two other men were killed in separate incidents on Thursday. Private John Brackpool, 27, of the Prince of Wales’ Company, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was shot at Char-e-Anjir, near Lashkar Gah, while on sentry duty. Rifleman Daniel Hume, 22, of 4th Battalion The Rifles, was killed in an explosion while on foot patrol near Nad-e-Ali.

The hearses will drive to Wootton Bassett on their way to the John Radcliffe hospital, Oxford. Inquests into their deaths will be held in the coming weeks.

Crowds have appeared spontaneously in Wootton Bassett to pay their respects since the bodies of British service personnel started being brought back to Lyneham in 2007.

The mayor of Wootton Bassett, Steve Bucknell, said: “Every repatriation is a very sad event, whether it is one person or eight.

“What makes it so much sadder is when you see the friends and family of the fallen and it brings it home that these are real people with real lives – someone’s son, grandson, brother and father. They are going to leave a hole in many lives.”

He paid tribute to the “fantastic” people of Wootton Bassett. “They never fail to amaze me with their ability to always do the right thing,” he said.

Standing beneath a simple homemade tribute with bunting and newspaper clippings, Alison Aldridge, the aunt of Rifleman Aldridge, had brought eight red roses with her in tribute to all the men who fell.

“It is extremely sad that his life was taken so swiftly, but I take comfort from the fact that he had two very fulfilling years rather than a lifetime of regrets,” she said.

“It’s lovely that so many people are here – young and old. It’s amazing how so many young people here understand and respect what’s going on.”

Veteran Alan Pearson, 74, from Frome, Somerset, a former Royal Engineer, was attending a repatriation for the first time to pay his “respects to the lads and their families”.

“I think they should stay there [in Afghanistan] but I think they should give them better equipment – helicopters,” he said. “They are doing the right thing. If not then these devils are going to be over here, blowing us up.”

Yesterday Gordon Brown said the last few weeks of fighting in Helmand had been “a sad and difficult time” for Britain, but said it was right to press on and stop al-Qaida using Afghanistan as a base.

His words came after a total of 15 soldiers died in Afghanistan in 10 days, bringing the total number of UK military fatalities in the country since 2001 to 184, surpassing the 179 who died in Iraq.

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Afghan helicopter crash kills six

July 14th, 2009 | No Comments

Map

A helicopter has crashed in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province, Nato and UK military officials say.

Nato said the aircraft was carrying civilian workers and that two people had died, AFP news agency reported.

US military spokeswoman Lt Cmdr Christine Sidenstricker also said the helicopter was a civilian aircraft.

US, UK and Afghan forces have spent recent weeks on an offensive in Helmand aiming to boost security for polls.

It was not immediately clear why the aircraft came down in the Sangin district on Tuesday, or to whom it belonged.

Sangin district official Fazlul Haq told Reuters news agency: "It was in the sky on fire and then went down."</p

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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PM demands more troops from Kabul in Helmand

July 13th, 2009 | No Comments

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.”

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Rethink Afghanistan: Debunking the Myths About Women’s Rights in Afghanistan

July 13th, 2009 | No Comments

Afghan women continue to face horrific violence, despite one of the oft-stated goals of this war. And yet proponents of the war continue to use…

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PM defends Afghanistan policy

July 13th, 2009 | No Comments

Prime minister says helicopter capacity has doubled over last two years, but David Cameron disputes this

Gordon Brown today delivered a robust defence of government policy in Afghanistan amid signs that the cross-party consensus on the issue is starting to break down.

In a statement to the Commons, the prime minister said that helicopter capacity in Afghanistan had almost doubled over the last two years and that commanders on the ground were satisfied that they had the manpower they needed.

But David Cameron, the Tory leader, said that in reality there had been “no increase in helicopter capacity at all” because the number of troops in Afghanistan who needed them had doubled since 2006.

Ministers have faced a barrage of complaints following the death of eight soldiers within 24 hours at the end of last week, which took the death toll in Afghanistan above the total for the number of British soldiers killed in the Iraq war.

The Tories and the Liberal Democrats support the Afghan mission, but they have been increasingly critical of the way it is being conducted.

Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, told MPs that they should “try to make the maximum contribution to maintaining cross-party support” for what the troops were doing. But, during defence questions, several Labour MPs criticised the Tories for supposedly playing politics with the issue.

In his statement, Brown said that in the last two years the government had increased helicopter numbers by 60% and, taking into account the provision of extra crews and equipment, helicopter capacity had increased by 84%.

On troop levels, he said: “I have been assured by commanders on the ground and at the top of our armed services that we have the manpower we need for current operations.”

He said that three quarters of terrorist plots against the UK originated from the area around the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and that the case for intervention in Afghanistan now was the same as it was in 2001: “to prevent terrorist attacks here in Britain and across the world”.

He also said that he had been assured that Operation Panther’s Claw, the ongoing operation in Helmand, was having “a major impact on the Taliban” and the morale of British forces was “high”.

But, replying to the prime minister, Cameron said that “more needs to be done to set out and explain” British policy in Afghanistan. He also pointed out that, when Brown was chancellor in 2004, the Ministry of Defence’s helicopter budget had been cut by £1.4bn.

Earlier today, at the launch of a Tory policy document, Cameron described the lack of suitable helicopters in southern Afghanistan as “an extreme emergency”.

Cameron said: “The government made a historic mistake with a cutback of the helicopter programme, and they did it at a time when our troops were engaged both in Iraq and Afghanistan … In these conflicts, mobility is absolutely key.

“You have got to commit the resources so that they can do the job properly. The other thing we should do is [make] much more effort to go to every single Nato country and really hold their feet to the fire about why their helicopters are not there.

“If you do a desktop search on how many helicopters and troop-carrying helicopters different Nato countries have, you come up with a very significant number. When you see what’s actually in Afghanistan, it is a much less significant number.”

Cameron said that many of those helicopters would be “being repaired, being mended, deployed elsewhere, but I would like to see a real effort by the government to get around every single Nato capital and put a maximum amount of pressure on to beg, borrow or, frankly, steal those helicopters that are necessary for our troops in Afghanistan”.

Earlier today, Ainsworth accompanied Gordon Brown on a visit to the RAF Benson helicopter base, in Oxfordshire.

They met the chief of staff, personnel and families and were briefed on the timeline for the planned deployment of Merlin helicopters in Afghanistan at the end of the year.

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Stewart Nusbaumer: The Freeing of Afghan Poppies

July 12th, 2009 | No Comments

Kabul, Afghanistan — Well it’s official. Everyone can now relax. The US government is scraping its opium poppy eradication program in Afghanistan. Convinced that razing…

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Afghan strategy ‘right’, Brown says

July 11th, 2009 | No Comments

UK troops in Afghanistan

Gordon Brown has defended the government’s Afghanistan strategy, saying it is the right one despite a "dangerous battle" ahead.

Writing to the Commons Liaison Committee, the prime minister said the military operation was aimed at preventing terrorism coming to the UK.

There is mounting concern about the current offensive, with 15 British soldiers dying in the past 10 days.

Anti-war campaigners have claimed the conflict is "unwinnable".

The current major assault against the Taliban in Helmand aims to improve security ahead of next month’s Afghan elections. Many UK troops are fighting in the south under the auspices of Operation Panchai Palang or Panther’s Claw.

Heroin trade

Mr Brown, who will appear before this committee next week, said the Afghanistan-Pakistan border had emerged as "a new crucible of terrorism" linked to three-quarters of the most serious plots against the UK.

In the letter, he said: "So our purpose is clear: to prevent terrorism coming to the streets of Britain.

"Our security depends on strengthening the Pakistan and Afghan governments to defeat both al-Qaeda and also the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban."

He added that if the Taliban were allowed to "overwhelm Pakistan’s democracy", al-Qaeda would have "greater freedom from which to launch terrorist attacks across the world".

Mr Brown went on: "So this is a fight to clear terrorist networks from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to support the elected governments in both countries against the Taliban, to tackle the heroin trade which funds terrorism and the insurgency, and to build longer term stability."

He also paid tribute to "the fearless work of our troops" and added that despite the "tragic losses", morale remained high.

‘Nightmare’

The Stop the War coalition has announced an emergency protest in London on Monday, calling for British troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan in light of the heavy losses.

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A group spokesman said: "The troop surge which was meant to pacify Helmand province has become a nightmare for the British army.

"This unwinnable war must stop now."

One hundred and eighty-four service personnel have died in Afghanistan since 2001, more than the 179 who were killed during the war in Iraq.

On Friday in Helmand, five soldiers from the 2nd Battalion The Rifles were killed in two separate blasts near Sangin, while a member of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment died near Nad Ali.

A day earlier, a soldier from 4th Battalion The Rifles was killed in a blast near Nad Ali while another from Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, attached to 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was killed fighting insurgent forces near Lashkar Gah.

BRITISHCASUALTIES IN AFGHANISTAN MARCH 2006 – JULY 2009

  • 1: Highest monthly toll with 19 dead including 12 killed when a RAF Nimrod crashes in Afghanistan.
  • 2: British death toll reaches 100. Among the 13 fatalities in June is the first British female soldier.
  • 3: British casualties surge as major offensive against Taliban begins in the south. Many are lost to powerful Improvised Explosive Devices.

Graph showing UK deaths in Afghanistan

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Eight UK troops dead in 24 hours

July 11th, 2009 | No Comments

breaking news

The Ministry of Defence says five more British soldiers have died in Afghanistan, taking the total number of deaths announced on Friday to eight.

The five, from the 2nd Battalion The Rifles, were killed near Sangin, Helmand province, on Friday morning.

Their deaths takes the number killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 184 – more than those killed in the Iraq war.

British forces are currently engaged in a major offensive in Helmand along with US and Afghan troops. </p

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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Eight British soldiers killed in Afghanistan in a day

July 11th, 2009 | No Comments

• Eight UK soldiers killed in 24 hours
• Afghan death toll eclipses that in Iraq
• Brown warns of ‘very hard summer’

Ministers were bracing themselves for an increasingly bloody conflict in Afghanistan as it became clear that a further eight British soldiers have been killed in 24 hours, the worst combat death toll since the war began.

Five troops were killed in a single incident after they were caught in a bomb blast while on foot patrol. Officials confirmed that 15 troops have been killed in the last 10 days. With the government’s handling of the conflict under increasing scrutiny, Gordon Brown was forced to defend the Afghan mission as he left the G8 summit in Italy. Before heading directly to a private briefing at the military’s operational headquarters at Northwood, Middlesex, he warned of a “very hard summer … It’s not over”.

Speaking at a press conference at L’Aquila before the latest deaths had been announced, with his voice faltering Brown voiced his sympathy for the families of those who have died.

He said: “There is a chain of terror that runs from the mountains and towns of Afghanistan to the streets of Britain. Our resolution to complete the work we have started is undiminished.

“It is in tribute to the members of our forces who have given their lives that we should succeed in the efforts we have begun.”

Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, said the conflict was “winnable” but warned there would be no early end to the fighting. “I do believe that we are making progress and I do believe that this is winnable, but it is not winnable in the short term,” he told the BBC. “We are going to have to … get behind our armed forces who are doing the brave fighting.”

The daybegan with the confirmation of two deaths in Helmand province the previous day: one from 4th Battalion The Rifles by an explosion while on foot patrol; the second from the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, during a battle with insurgents near Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. Later, a third soldier from the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment was confirmed as having been killed when the Viking armoured vehicle in which he was travelling was hit.

Then there was worse news as it was confirmed that five troops had died and others were injured in a bomb blast. The deaths took the total number of fatalities in Afghanistan to 184, five more than the total lost in the Iraq conflict.

As the death toll grew, there were poignant scenes at Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire as five coffins draped with the union flag arrived at RAF Lyneham and were met by sombre crowds on the town’s streets.

Relatives of lance corporal Dane Elson, 22, from Bridgend, south Wales, of The 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, wept as the hearse carrying his body passed.

His girlfriend, Claire Wells, 23, was ushered forward and placed two roses on the hearse carrying his coffin. Wells said she had planned to live the rest of her life with Elson. “Now I’ll never see him again, I can’t bear it,” she said. Wells added that she did not believe the troops ought to be in Afghanistan. “They are fighting a war that we cannot win,” she said. “There are too many of our lads dying.”

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, who broke the consensus among party leaders this week when he criticised the government’s strategy in Afghanistan, said: “This tragic milestone must be a reminder to all of us of the huge sacrifices made day after day by our brave service men and women and their families. The courage and professionalism of our armed forces are second to none.”

Bernard Jenkin MP, a member of the Commons defence select committee, said: “It is astonishing that we are fighting high intensity operations the scale of Afghanistan on a peacetime budget without enough protection mobility and with fewer helicopters per head for armed forces than we had three years ago.”

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Afghan deaths match Iraq toll as three Britons killed

July 10th, 2009 | No Comments

Afghan conflict has now claimed lives of as many British servicemen and women as that in Iraq after MoD announces third casualty in 24 hours

The conflict in Afghanistan has now claimed the lives of as many British servicemen and women as that in Iraq after the Ministry of Defence announced today that another soldier had been killed.

Ten servicemen have died within the last nine days and the casualty rate is as high as at any point since Afghanistan was invaded in 2001 in response to the 9/11 terror attacks on the US.

The latest casualty – the third to be announced today – was a soldier from the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment. He was killed in southern Afghanistan, the MoD said. Next of kin have been informed.

Officials said the soldier was killed in an explosion during an operation near Nad-e-Ali, in central Helmand province.

“The loss of this brave Tankie has hit us all deeply,” Lieutenant Colonel Nick Richardson, a spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said.

“We grieve for him at this very sad time. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends and colleagues who feel the greatest loss. His loss has not been in vain.”

The death is likely to intensify the debate about whether the Afghanistan operation is worthwhile.

Ministers still strongly insist that the deployment is vital for British security, but the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, this week questioned whether the government had “the will, strategy or tactics” to do the job properly.

Gordon Brown will go straight to the Northwood headquarters of the armed forces in Middlesex for a private briefing on Afghanistan with military chiefs when he returns to Britain from the G8 summit in Italy.

Speaking at the end the talks today, before the latest casualties were formally announced, the prime minister said that it was “vital” that the British mission succeeded.

He also robustly denied claims by General Lord Guthrie, the former head of the armed forces, that soldiers were dying because the military was short of money.

Earlier, the MoD announced that two soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan yesterday.

One of the men, from 4th Battalion the Rifles, was killed in an explosion while on a foot patrol near Nad-e-Ali.

The other, from the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment attached to 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, died from a gunshot wound following a battle with insurgents near Lashkar Gah, also in Helmand.

The latest casualties take the Afghanistan death toll to 179, equalling the total number killed in Iraq.

“This tragic milestone must be a reminder to all of us of the huge sacrifices made day after day by our brave servicemen and women and their families,” Clegg said.

“The courage and professionalism of our armed forces are second to none.

“We must never forget the massive debt we owe to those who have paid the ultimate price to ensure we can live in safety.”

The war in Afghanistan, where the British are fighting with other Nato countries to stop Taliban fundamentalists regaining control of the country, has had the backing of all the main political parties as well as the general support of the public.

But ministers are worried that, with the death toll rising and no prospect of an end to the campaign in sight, public opinion could turn.

Brown said: “This is a very hard summer, and it is not over yet.

“It is vital that we see this through. Our resolution to complete the work that we have started in Afghanistan and Pakistan is undiminished.

“It’s in tribute to the members of the armed forces that have given their lives that we should succeed in the efforts that we have begun.”

The prime minister said it was vital the Taliban were pushed back in Helmand province and al-Qaida thwarted across the border in Pakistan.

“We can’t allow the borders of Afghanistan to be lawless places,” he said. “The streets of Britain are safer places as a result of the armed forces’ work in Afghanistan.

“Our job is to secure a stable and democratic Afghanistan.”

Brown also spoke of the “sadness” he felt about young soldiers who were “incredibly professional” and “very courageous” losing their lives.

“My sympathy goes out to every one of the families who have suffered the pain of losing a loved one,” he said.

Bernard Jenkin, a member of the defence select committee, said: “It is astonishing that we are fighting high intensity operations the scale of Afghanistan on a peacetime budget without enough protection mobility and with fewer helicopters per head for armed forces than we had three years ago.”

Guthrie was quoted in the Mail today as saying the Treasury had spent “the minimum they could get away with” on defence.

He said fewer soldiers would be dying if commanders on the ground had more troops and more equipment.

“I spoke to an officer the other day who said that the Treasury had affected the operational safety of our soldiers, by preventing an uplift in our numbers,” Guthrie added.

“As far as helicopters are concerned, of course they need more helicopters. If they had more, it is very likely that fewer soldiers would have been killed by roadside bombs.”

Guthrie blamed Brown directly for the state of MoD funding.

“It is an indication of the unsympathetic view the chancellor of the day [Brown] and the Treasury had of defence when Britain went into southern Afghanistan in 2006,” he said.

“They were prepared to give very large amounts of money to other departments, but the minimum they could get away with to defence.”

When asked about Guthrie’s comments, Brown said the troops in Afghanistan had twice as much helicopter capacity as they did two years ago.

“We have spent over £1bn on vehicles,” he added.

News of the latest casualties came as the bodies of another five British servicemen killed in Afghanistan over the past week – four in Operation Panchai Palang – were returned to the UK.

Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, acknowledged this week that there was “gloom and worry” about the British fatalities and admitted more lives would be lost.

But he insisted morale was high in Afghanistan and said it would be a “good thing” for Clegg to talk to some UK troops.

Around 3,000 troops are involved in the British-led Operation Panchai Palang, which began on 19 June and has seen fierce fighting and significant casualties on both sides.

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