UK tries to form coalition to fight in Afghanistan [View All]

[occuserpens]

No, after Iraq, all this is not likely to work.

Simon Tisdall, Richard Norton-Taylor. UK tries to form coalition to fight in Afghanistan

Britain is attempting to build a coalition to pursue counter-insurgency combat operations against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan after the withdrawal by the Bush administration of 4,000 US troops early next year.
Talks with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and several other countries are being held before a Nato meeting in Brussels on December 7. They follow the refusal of European allies, such as France and Germany, to allow their troops to become involved in counter-insurgency.
The discussions are among preparations for the deployment of 2,000 crack British troops backed by Apache attack helicopters to lawless Helmand province at the head of an expanded, British-led Nato force next spring.
Violence in Afghanistan is at its highest since the 2001 US-led invasion. Suicide bombers killed a German peacekeeper in Kabul yesterday. A British soldier died recently in a gun battle in Mazar-i-Sharif.
The deployments will raise British troops in Afghanistan to more than 4,000 compared with 8,500 in south-east Iraq.