More Troops Sent to Fight Taliban

More British troops are to be deployed to southern Afghanistan to give the soldiers there better protection, to step up training of the local security forces and to increase development projects. The move, which is likely to coincide with a cut in the number of British troops in Iraq, will bring the total in Afghanistan next spring to more than 8,000. There are 7,800 there now.

The move, set out to MPs by the defence secretary, Des Browne, involves up to 600 troops earmarked for priority tasks, including manning new armored vehicles and flying Chinook and Apache helicopters. Tornado aircraft will replace Harrier jets whose airframes and crews are showing the strain of nearly four years of engagement in difficult operations.

Browne said: "It does not mean our mission is expanding. It means we are taking the steps necessary to take our mission forward as effectively as we can." He said the Taliban leadership had reduced "their ambition from insurgency to terrorism", referring to roadside bombs and suicide attacks which killed three British paratroopers last week. But the Taliban's new tactics posed a "different, but very serious challenge" to British troops.

Browne made his remarks as the bodies of five soldiers killed in Afghanistan arrived back in the UK at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire, for a military repatriation ceremony. The men, all from 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, based at Colchester, in Essex, were killed in the past week. Privates Nathan Cuthbertson and David Murray, both 19, and Daniel Gamble, 22, were blown up by a suicide bomber last Sunday. On Thursday, Lance Corporal James Bateman, 29, and Private Jeff Doherty, 20, were killed when they came under Taliban fire.

Roadside bombs and suicide attacks pose serious challenges to British and Nato attempts to conduct a hearts and minds campaign. defense officials said yesterday that such tactics were a sign of "desperation". The Taliban had been "considerably disrupted" and had reached a "stalemate" which British troops should exploit, they added.