Brown to send 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan
By politics.co.uk staff
Gordon Brown is willing to reinforce Nato’s security mission in Afghanistan with additional British troop deployments, reports have claimed.
British officials at the Nato summit in Strasbourg/Baden-Baden have reportedly indicated that the prime minister is prepared to send up to 4,000 extra troops to the war-torn country in time for presidential elections this summer.
The UK already has 8,000 troops in the country.
The Ministry of Defence told that “nothing official” had been announced.
“There is a strong risk of the Taliban wanting to disrupt the elections in August,” a spokeswoman said.
“It is very important that these polls go ahead without a hitch. The prime minister is considering a temporary increase during the election period, but this will be subject to burden-sharing [and will be discussed at the summit].”
President Barack Obama has already announced that 21,000 US troops will be deployed to Afghanistan by August, taking the American military presence to 60,000.
