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UK delays deployment of Tornado ground attack aircraft in Afghanistan

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Feb 26, IRNA -- Plans to replace Britain’s Harrier ground attack aircraft in Afghanistan with Tornado GR4s this spring have been delayed by several months, Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth has announced.

“Delays in construction of the necessary supporting infrastructure and our current estimate of the time required to complete the Tornado urgent operational requirement (UOR) enhancements mean that the Tornado GR4s will now deploy in summer 2009,” Ainsworth said.

“We expect delivery of the UORs in advance of completion of the infrastructure project and will keep both programmes under constant review to ensure completion as quickly as possible,” he said.

In a written parliamentary statement published Wednesday, the minister said that in the meantime, the joint force Harrier will continue to contribute to the provision of close air support to UK and Allied Forces in southern Afghanistan.

The delay comes as four more British troops were killed in Helmand province on Wednesday in the worst loss of life in a single incident for UK forces in the country since December.

The British government announced last June that it was replacing its eight Harriers, which have been based at Afghanistan’s Kandahar airfield since November 2004, by spring this year.

“I am very mindful of the strain that this extended deployment has put upon the crews, their families and the wider roles of Joint Force Harrier,” former defence secretary Des Browne said at the time.

The decision was seen as putting a further strain on Britain’s Tornado aircraft, which have been operating in Iraq. It represented a move away from proposals to deploy new Eurofighter Typhoons, which have been declared to have a multi-role capability.

The switch to Tornados is costing Pnds 42 million (Dlrs 60m) to modify. It also involves doubling the aircrew to operate with planes at Kandahar to 24 and a 50 per cent increase to 122 supporting ground staff compared with the Harriers.