Brown sets out anti-terror strategy

12 April 2012

Gordon Brown is to set out the UK's strategy to tackle a "crucible of terrorism" in the lawless mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Prime Minister will make a Commons statement on his return from talks in the region with both countries' presidents during which he warned the situation posed a direct threat to the UK.

He will tell MPs efforts to counter extremism must be concentrated on areas where al Qaida and the Taliban operate with impunity and from where three-quarters of terrorist activity in Britain originates.

And he will give more details of British forces being sent as part of a 5,000-strong Nato reinforcement to provide extra security for Afghanistan's presidential election in August. An extra 900 UK troops are to temporarily join the 8,100 already on the ground.

Mr Brown's statement came after a British soldier from 1st Battalion Welsh Guards was killed in an explosion while on foot patrol in southern Afghanistan, bringing the number of British service personnel who have died in the country since operations began to 153.

This came after Mr Brown flew to Afghanistan where he visited troops before discussing the situation with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul and then moving on to Islamabad to meet President Asif Ali Zardari.

Some £665 million in development aid bound for Pakistan over the next four years is being refocused on the northern areas, including text books in a bid to encourage young people away from extremism.

The UK wants Afghan provinces to be handed over to government control one by one - in much the same way as has happened in Iraq. The strategy also calls for the Afghan army to be expanded from 75,000 to 135,000 by the end of 2011, alongside recruiting thousands more police.

"There is a chain of terrorism that goes from here round to the streets of Britain," Mr Brown said during the trip.

"That's why it's absolutely important that while we have made progress on Afghan elections, democratic government, six million children in education, hospitals as well as roads and infrastructure for the people of Afghanistan, that we defeat international terrorism and hold it back from here in Lashkar Gar, here in Helmand province, but also on the other side of the border in Pakistan," Mr Brown said.

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