Major Sebastian Morley, former commander of Special Air Service troops in Afghanistan, was speaking out for the first time since resigning in protest in late 2008 over the use of lightly armoured Land Rovers in combat zones.

"The operations that we are conducting are so worthless," Morley, 40, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"We hold tiny areas of ground in Helmand and we are kidding ourselves if we think our influence goes beyond 500 metres (yards) of our security bases."

"It's just crazy to think we hold that ground or have any influence on what goes on beyond the bases," he added.

"We go out on operations, have a punch-up with the Taliban and then go back to camp for tea. We are not holding the ground. The Taliban know where we are. They know full well when we have gone back into camp."

"I don't think we have even scratched the surface as far as this conflict goes. The level of attrition and casualties is only set to rise. This is the equivalent to the start of the Vietnam conflict, there is much more to come."

Britain has 8,300 soldiers in Afghanistan -- the largest contribution after the United States to the NATO-led military force there.

A total of 149 British troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, several in so-called Snatch Land Rovers which Morley criticised as "inadequate" and the source of "needless deaths".

It was the deaths of four soldiers in June 2008, including the first British female soldier to die in Afghanistan, that prompted Morley to quit the military in anger.

Responding to Morley's comments, a Ministry of Defence spokesman in London said Saturday: "The security challenge is manageable by the available forces and the overriding mood of the local population is one of optimism and hope."

Mild winter aids insurgents on Afghan border: US officer
Attacks by insurgents in eastern Afghanistan rose in the past two months partly due to mild winter weather that allowed militants to cross mountain passes on Pakistan's border, a US military officer said on Friday.

Attacks by the Taliban and allied groups increased by about 20 percent in the past year and by 30 percent in the first two months of 2009, Colonel Pete Johnson said from Afghanistan in a video conference with reporters.

The violence "has risen somewhat largely I believe due to the really good weather that the enemy has had to be able to operate in the border regions," Johnson said.

"Normally the winters are much more severe. And quite frankly, this year has been relatively temperate. We haven't had snow in the upper elevations.

"Many of the passes that would normally be blocked, just were not," said the colonel, who commands troops from the 101st Airborne Division in the country's east.

But he said much of the insurgent attacks, using artillery, mortars or improvised explosives, were "ineffective" and that the militants were now targeting Afghan security forces more than US and NATO troops.

The border with Pakistan was "porous" and marked by difficult terrain, while the Afghan border police were not able to provide necessary security, he said.

"The effort on the border is just not where it needs to be in terms of security," Johnson said.

"Right now the Afghan border police just does not have the capacity," he said. "They have not been properly resourced or manned to accomplish that mission."

He said efforts were underway to recruit and train a larger border police force and that the border units would soon be equipped with heavy machine guns.

In a report to Congress last month, the US Defense Department said attacks by the Taliban and other Islamist militants rose dramatically in the spring and summer of 2008, marking the worst violence since the Taliban's ouster in 2001.

A rejuvenated Taliban was challenging the Kabul government for control of the south and east of the country and increasingly in the west, the report said.

President Barack Obama has approved the deployment of an additional 17,000 troops to join the 38,000-strong US force in Afghanistan and his advisors meanwhile are carrying out an elaborate review of US strategy.

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
News From Across The Stans

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News