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UK to send specialist troops to Afghanistan to counter bomb threat

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, March 23, IRNA – Britain is to deploy 200 specialist troops to Afghanistan to counter the growing threat from improvised explosive devices, it was reported Monday.

The UK’s military commanders are also drawing up plans to deploy between 1,000 and 1,500 additional troops for a limited period to cover presidential elections that are due to be held on August 20, according to British officials quoted by the Guardian newspaper.

By sending a unit of specialist troops, commanders were said to be hoping to increase the use of small unmanned aerial vehicles with powerful cameras to help identify insurgents planting road side bombs, which have for about 80 per cent of British fatalities.

The extra troops for the election period were expected to join some 8,000 British soldiers in Helmand province, but the Guardian said that the UK’s army was “so stretched” they were unlikely to stay long.

Instead, the British garrison is to be bolstered by some of the 17,000 extra US troops who will be deployed throughout southern Afghanistan over the next nine months and will bring with them 120 helicopters, which UK soldiers have been short of.

Camp Bastion, the British base in Helmand, is reportedly being expanded to three times its present size to accommodate the US troops.

By May, C17 transport aircraft are expected to make 675 monthly flights bringing equipment and supplies with the number rising to 860 a month by late summer.

"That is about the same amount of freight that Gatwick airport (in south London) has to cope with," Air Commodore Les O'Dea, the commanding officer of UK Joint Force Support, was quoted saying.