Monday, February 13, 2006
News RhetIraq: Afghanistan and British Troop Levels
Source: The Independent UK
Quotes: From article titled, "Into the valley of death: UK troops head into Afghan war zone"
Suicide bombings and firefights, Western troops under attack, sectarian clashes between Shia and Sunni, foreigners taken hostage. Days of escalating violence have left dozens of people dead and more than a hundred injured. This is not Iraq but Afghanistan, a conflict which has now overtaken on the grim league table of body counts - 89 killings in the last eight days in Afghanistan compared with 54 in Iraq during the same period.
... the first batch of 5,700 British troops being sent to Afghanistan - will begin deploying this week in a mission lasting at least three years at a cost of £1bn.
... last week John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, appeared to pave the way for a "significant" withdrawal from Iraq even if the country continued to face serious problems.
Senior commanders are deeply concerned about fighting a "war on two fronts". General Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of the Army, has written to Lieutenant General David Richards, the British commander who will lead Nato forces in Afghanistan, asking if he has enough troops to cope with the spiralling turmoil. Lt Gen Richards is believed to have asked for another infantry battle group, about a thousand men, but this is not feasible with the continuing commitment in Iraq.
Lord Guthrie, the former chief of defence staff, said: "The British Army is already dangerously overstretched and maintaining a force even of this size over the years will be difficult."
There are now lethal similarities in the methods used by the insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nato commanders acknowledge that terrorist techniques are being imported from Iraq to Afghanistan and Islamist fighters are entering the country in ever-increasing numbers from Pakistan.
The place where this is most evident is the province of Helmand, where most of the British forces will be deployed, and where a resurgent Taliban and their al-Qa'ida allies have killed almost 100 US and Afghan troops in the past few months - the total number lost by British troops in the Iraq war.
Ministers have said that one of the main roles of the British troops would be to help eradicate Afghanistan's massive opium crop. But the task force would be deployed under a Nato mandate which does not allow eradication.
Thirteen people were killed on Tuesday by a suicide bomber in Kandahar, a common weapon in Iraq, but relatively unknown until quite recently in Afghanistan. The Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah said: "More and more people are joining us to be suicide bombers. The suicide bombers will continue against coalition forces and their agents. This is part of our military strategy."
Quotes: From article titled, "Into the valley of death: UK troops head into Afghan war zone"
Suicide bombings and firefights, Western troops under attack, sectarian clashes between Shia and Sunni, foreigners taken hostage. Days of escalating violence have left dozens of people dead and more than a hundred injured. This is not Iraq but Afghanistan, a conflict which has now overtaken on the grim league table of body counts - 89 killings in the last eight days in Afghanistan compared with 54 in Iraq during the same period.
... the first batch of 5,700 British troops being sent to Afghanistan - will begin deploying this week in a mission lasting at least three years at a cost of £1bn.
... last week John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, appeared to pave the way for a "significant" withdrawal from Iraq even if the country continued to face serious problems.
Senior commanders are deeply concerned about fighting a "war on two fronts". General Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of the Army, has written to Lieutenant General David Richards, the British commander who will lead Nato forces in Afghanistan, asking if he has enough troops to cope with the spiralling turmoil. Lt Gen Richards is believed to have asked for another infantry battle group, about a thousand men, but this is not feasible with the continuing commitment in Iraq.
Lord Guthrie, the former chief of defence staff, said: "The British Army is already dangerously overstretched and maintaining a force even of this size over the years will be difficult."
There are now lethal similarities in the methods used by the insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nato commanders acknowledge that terrorist techniques are being imported from Iraq to Afghanistan and Islamist fighters are entering the country in ever-increasing numbers from Pakistan.
The place where this is most evident is the province of Helmand, where most of the British forces will be deployed, and where a resurgent Taliban and their al-Qa'ida allies have killed almost 100 US and Afghan troops in the past few months - the total number lost by British troops in the Iraq war.
Ministers have said that one of the main roles of the British troops would be to help eradicate Afghanistan's massive opium crop. But the task force would be deployed under a Nato mandate which does not allow eradication.
Thirteen people were killed on Tuesday by a suicide bomber in Kandahar, a common weapon in Iraq, but relatively unknown until quite recently in Afghanistan. The Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah said: "More and more people are joining us to be suicide bombers. The suicide bombers will continue against coalition forces and their agents. This is part of our military strategy."
