British Army facing worsening situation in Afghanistan

On August 15, Defence Secretary Des Browne gave an interview to the Guardian in which he said that British forces could be at a “turning point” in bringing stability to Afghanistan while suggesting that there would still be a substantial UK military presence in the country for many years to come. Ratcheting up the pressure on Tehran, he also stated that he had “no doubt” that the Taliban was being supplied with weapons from Iran, via drug routes, and that he had “reason to believe the Taliban go to Tehran for training.”

Browne, who recently returned from his fourth visit to Afghanistan since he was appointed 14 months ago, was particularly keen to paint a rosy picture of the UK deployment, given the recent fighting involving British troops in southern Afghanistan.

Seven British soldiers had been killed in Helmand province in a previous 10-day period. Separately, a Briton working for the private security firm ArmorGroup was shot dead in Kabul.

But even these figures do little to encapsulate the deeper crisis that is afoot within the British armed forces.

On July 23, a secret memorandum to fellow defence chiefs by General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, was leaked to the Daily Telegraph. Dannatt said, “We now have almost no capability to react to the unexpected.” Reinforcements for emergencies or for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan were “now almost non-existent.”

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