British troops ‘to end routine Afghan patrols in nine months’

 
Orderly pullout: the move paves the way for the withdrawal of most troops

British soldiers are set to be taken off routine day-to-day patrols in Afghanistan within nine months, defence sources said today.

They would hand over the lead security role to Afghan police and troops in the last district of the Helmand province in which UK forces operate.

British forces are still expected to be called on for some combat operations but by the end of this year or during the first half of 2013, they would no longer be doing the routine patrols which have seen so many soldiers killed by roadside bombs. The British military death toll in the 11-year conflict now stands at 404 after the deaths of six soldiers last week when their Warrior armoured vehicle was blown up by a massive bomb.

The move to a support combat role would pave the way for the gradual withdrawal of thousands of troops, with only a small number remaining in the country by the end of 2014. The timetable for an orderly pull-out is high on the agenda of the talks between Barack Obama and David Cameron on the Prime Minister’s visit to America this week.

As America faces fresh pressure for a speedier withdrawal, British military chiefs have warned against “cutting and running”. But public support is falling in the US for the war, which has suffered a series of setbacks including the outrage in Afghanistan over US forces burning copies of the Koran and an American soldier going on the rampage this weekend killing 16 Afghan civilians.

About 500 of the UK’s 9,500 troops are due to come home this autumn, and the US is set to pull out tens of thousands of “surge” soldiers.

UK forces have already handed over the lead security control in two out of three districts and are on track to do so in a third. A defence source said: “We expect transition by the end of 2012 or in the first half of 2013. Afghan forces will then take the security lead in all three districts of central Helmand where British forces are operating.”

Today it emerged that the soldier who ran amok was from a US base already tainted by a “rogue unit”. The man is understood to be a staff sergeant from the Fort Lewis base in Washington State. Five soldiers from the Army Stryker Brigade, based at Fort Lewis, now called the Joint Base Lewis-McChord, were charged with the murder of three Afghans “for sport”. A sergeant was convicted five months ago on three counts of murder.

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