KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said today that the U.K. could send extra troops to Afghanistan under a U.S.-led military surge aimed at stemming terrorism and supporting upcoming Afghan elections.
Brown visited the front line in volatile Helmand province only a day after four British troops were killed in the same region — one in a roadside bomb and three when a teenage suicide bomber with a bomb hidden in a wheelbarrow blew himself up.
“There is a chain of terror that comes from the Pakistani and Afghan mountains right across Europe and can end up very easily on the streets of Britain,” Brown said after he left Camp Bastion in Helmand and traveled to Kabul to see Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
“British people are safer today because we have our troops working with the Afghan people to act against terror.” He said that Britain and other NATO allies should support proposals by President-elect Barack Obama to boost troops numbers but that the burden had to be shared equally.
Brown is scheduled to brief lawmakers in London on Monday over future plans in Afghanistan and indicated he could authorize the deployment of extra troops. “I have been taking stock, I have been talking to our commanders on the ground,” he said, adding that he would make no announcement before addressing the House of Commons.
“It is right that the Americans propose to bring more troops into Afghanistan, but it is also right that the burden-sharing means that others have to do more,” Brown said.
U.S. leaders say thousands of incoming American troops will be sent to reinforce British forces in the south, a major shift in U.S. strategy. Most American forces have been deployed in eastern Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan. But Helmand and neighboring Kandahar province have suffered from the country’s worst violence the last two years.
Three Canadian soldiers were killed and one injured when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device, the Canadian military said. They were responding to a report that people were planting a suspicious object west of Kandahar City in southern Afghanistan.
“I think that there is disgust and horror at these tactics used by the Taliban,” said Brown, who described Friday’s suicide bombing as “cowardly.” “It is a terrible commentary on the Taliban that they should use a 13-year-old child to be a suicide bomber to kill some of our British troops,” he said.
Brown on Saturday visited Helmand’s Sangin Valley, about 25 miles from the scene of the two attacks Friday. British military officials said it was the closest the country’s prime minister had been to the front lines in the Afghan war.
Britain has some 8,200 troops in Afghanistan, most of whom are based in Helmand.
British officials said militant bombs have become more sophisticated but not as sophisticated as those seen in Iraq.
Ambushes have also become more complex, with insurgents firing from multiple angles after a bomb goes off. The officials spoke on condition they weren’t identified because of government rules.
But the quality of intelligence from Afghan residents has risen over the last year, the officials said. A tipping point in Britain’s fight against the Irish Republican Army came when ground intelligence started improving, the officials noted.
British forces were tipped off by multiple sources Oct. 11 when 200 to 250 Taliban tried to launch an attack on Helmand province’s capital, Lashkar Gah, in an attempt to kill the provincial governor. The officials said that months ago and “certainly a year ago” that kind of a tip-off wouldn’t have happened.
Afghans don’t give troops such intelligence unless they are willing to take risks and trust NATO troops, the officials said.
In Helmand, Brown met with Afghan leaders, including Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal, with whom he discussed the province’s drug trade, the governor’s food zone and the importance of next year’s presidential election.
“Challenges remain, but there’s been visible progress from my last visit,” Brown said. He noted that 18 tons of poppy seed had been seized in Gereshk district, and that 3,100 tons of wheat seed had been distributed to farmers.
British troops say the wheat program has been successful because of the global rise in prices of the staple grain.
