Afghan threat to UK troops
- ITN
Afghan threat to UK troops
British soldiers in Afghanistan may have to mount pre-emptive action against Taleban and al-Qaeda terrorists, according to Defence Secretary John Reid. Dr Reid, who is visiting the country where Britain is preparing to send a 3,300-strong taskforce to the lawless Helmand province, warned they faced a 'complex and dangerous' mission. The main role of the British force is to support Afghanistan's reconstruction effort while the US continues to focus on the hunt for Taleban and al-Qaeda remnants. But Dr Reid accepted that there would be occasions when the British would have to go out and find the terrorists in order to prevent attacks on the areas they are defending. He said: 'If this didn't involve the necessity to use force we wouldn't send soldiers. 'Although our mission to Afghanistan is primarily reconstruction, it is a complex and dangerous mission because the terrorists will want to destroy the economy and the legitimate trade and the government that we are helping to build up. 'Of course, our mission is not counter-terrorism but one of the tasks that we may have to accomplish in order to achieve our strategic mission will be to defend our own troops and the people we are here to defend and to pre-empt, on occasion, terrorist attacks on us.' Meanwhile, a cargo plane transporting US anti-narcotics agents crashed into houses in a southern Afghan town, killing five people, including two foreigners, officials said. Five Afghans were missing after the aircraft ploughed into their mud-walled homes close to a military airfield in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand province, Major Quentin Innis, a Canadian military spokesman, confirmed. The plane had been coming into land when a truck crossed the runway, forcing the pilot into a fatal change of course, he said.
ITN | April 24, 2006
