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| Afghanistan |
| Extra 200 Brit bomb experts for Afghanistan |
| 2009-08-31 |
| But 200 other troops will come home The number of British troops in Afghanistan is to stay at 9,000 despite a pledge from Gordon Brown to send 200 more roadside-bomb specialists and to increase the number of Afghan army trainers, defence officials have revealed. The announcements from the Prime Minister during his brief visit to Helmand on Saturday appeared not to have been clarified in advance with the Ministry of Defence, even though Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, was on the same trip. It emerged only today that the 200 additional specialists would not increase the overall size of the force. “There will be some rebalancing to make sure the ‘top baseline’ figure of 9,000 troops remains constant,” one defence official said. This means military commanders will have to send home 200 support troops to keep to the limit of 9,000. “This has not yet been worked out,” the official admitted. The emphasis Mr Brown placed on training an extra 50,000 more Afghan soldiers over the next year was also interpreted as meaning Britain would have to send more troops to train and mentor the new recruits to the Afghan National Security Force (ANSF). However, defence officials said that there were no plans to boost the size of the British force and that the extra effort to be put into instructing greater numbers of Afghan soldiers would be achieved by switching more members of Britain’s Task Force in Helmand from combat operations to training. The Prime Minister’s comments on Saturday about accelerating the training of Afghan soldiers pre-empted the expected recommendation from General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of Nato’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, whose report on a new strategy for the mission is due early next month. General McChrystal is not expected to specify how many extra troops he needs to boost the training of the ANSF. It has been presumed that Britain would have to offer more trainers. But MoD sources said the focus would be, again, on rebalancing the tasks of the troops already in Helmand. Officials travelling with Mr Brown confirmed that the extra 700 troops from the 4th Battalion The Rifles sent for the election in Afghanistan would be staying in Helmand, confirming the decision to maintain the force at 9,000 service personnel. The MoD also said more unmanned aerial vehicles — surveillance drones — were to be sent to Helmand to improve reconnaissance and to catch the bombers. At present the British force has three Reaper drones, although one is out of action after a crash-landing, and a mix of Hermes 450 drones and tiny Desert Hawks. The Prime Minister talked about increasing the number of drone flying hours to provide extra aerial surveillance protection for the troops. The other announcements he made that had yet to be clarified by the MoD were: 20 additional Ridgback armoured vehicles to be added to the 30 already in Helmand, a better armoured Mastiff troop-carrier to counter the threat from roadside bombs, and accelerated delivery of the new Warthog vehicle replacing Vikings that have proved vulnerable to improvised explosive devices. The Treasury will fund the vehicle programme with an extra £25 million. Mr Brown also promised more helicopters, although this has already been announced. Six Merlins are being sent from Iraq to Helmand, a small number of Lynx helicopters with improved engines are to be deployed once the temperature begins to drop and two Chinook Mk 3s, now being reverted to basic Mk 2as, will be in theatre by the spring. |
| Posted by:Steve White |