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Britain does not have enough troops in Helmand to defeat the Taliban in the districts under its command, the American commander in the region has told The Daily Telegraph.
By Damien McElroy in Lashkar Gah
Published: 7:00PM GMT 08 Jan 2010
Brig Gen Larry Nicholson cast doubt on UK military numbers and tactics saying British forces had not matched the success of his troops in recent months.
He will soon have 20,000 US Marines under his command in Helmand while British troops now number 9,500 regular soldiers plus hundreds of special forces.
The US force has claimed dramatic progress in recent times but the continuing high levels of attacks against British forces, particularly using improvised explosive devices (IEDs), has dismayed US commanders.
Brig Nicholson said the success of his men was built on high troop numbers, which the British could not match.
"Part of it may be that the British have sent troops into areas that are more heavily populated, as well as the fact that troop density is higher in our area," he said. "That's part of it. You do have two Helmands."
The US Marine-led Task Force Leatherneck covers more than half of Helmand and works alongside the UK-led Nato Task Force Helmand, which is concentrated in the largest towns in the eastern half of the province.
American war doctrine in Afghanistan identifies troop density the number of soldiers for every 1,000 civilians as the key to successful counter insurgency.
"Compared to the British, we've had an advantage over the Taliban," he said. "We went into an area where nobody was at no Nato forces the only guys there were Taliban and they're all gone. There are some definite differences."
Brig Nicholson said the American approach to driving out the Taliban was more robust and locals had more confidence in transferring their loyalties to the marines.
Questions about the British deployment have also been raised by Helmand's provincial governor.
Gulab Mangal said the increasing number of deaths among British forces came despite the increasing weakness of the Taliban.
"The enemy is so weak it doesn't have the ability to fight face to face in residential areas, so it is planting IEDs and the UK forces casualties are going up," he said. "One of the reasons for growing casualties of the UK forces is its tactics and the conduct of some operations."
Three quarters of the 108 British deaths in Helmand last year were caused by IEDs.
Gov Mangal, who is well regarded by diplomats, called for a review of British operations and force levels in Helmand.
"I don't want to speculate but the British military experts should do some thinking about the ways in which tactics in their areas is not so effective," he said. "It may be that the causes will be tactics or vehicles or other things like number of men."
British commanders claim order has been imposed on all the main towns in eastern Helmand but significant pockets of Taliban resistance remain. Soldiers report that patrols encounter "heavy contact" fire every time they leave the front line bases.
Lt Lol Matt Bazeley, spokesman for Task Force Helmand, defended the British record.
"The British Operations in Afghanistan are focused on the population of Central Helmand. As Brig Nicholson observes, this puts the British military mission among the people in the most heavily populated areas," he said. " It is not that we are fighting a less effective effort than our US colleagues, we are simply fighting at the very heart of the insurgency."
William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, has said Britain will be forced to hand over some responsibility to the Americans in Helmand.
"I think there will have to be some realignment in Helmand to reflect the fact that Britain with one third of the troops cannot be responsible for two thirds of the population," he said.
Source : Too few British troops to defeat the Taliban, says US military - Telegraph
