UK troops' limited Afghan role

Troops will not be deployed en masse, sources say

UK troops are unlikely to deploy in large numbers in Afghanistan, senior defence sources have said.

Officials said it was not certain whether any further UK ground troops would be needed beyond a small number of Royal Marines and Special Forces already deployed in the war-torn country.

It remains far from clear if there is a role for any additional UK armed forces to go to Afghanistan

Whitehall source

And it is thought that even if further deployment of troops was undertaken it would be nowhere near the scale of the 6,000 members of the forces currently on 48 hour stand-by.

"Almost certainly nothing like that number would deploy, even if a political decision was made to deploy," one source said.

"It remains far from clear if there is a role for any additional UK armed forces to go to Afghanistan.

"The desirability of additional forces is not yet at all certain."

Mixed signals

News that troops will not be sent to Afghanistan in large numbers comes after a week in which there were mixed signals from Whitehall on the issue.

Prime Minister Tony Blair had suggested that around 4,000 troops were on standby last week to go in as part of an international stabilisation force.

Ms Short called for troops to secure supply routes

Following the deployment of members of the Special Boat Service at Bagram airport, the number of troops put on a heightened state of alert was upped to 6,000.

Meanwhile there was growing impatience about the hampering of the humanitarian effort.

International Development Secretary Clare Short told a Commons committee that unless troops were sent in to secure supply routes there would be an humanitarian crisis.

That followed warnings by aid agencies that local warlords were hampering aid efforts.

But MOD officials insisted on Friday that troops were not needed to get supplies through.

Awareness

"I think there is a greater awareness of the true situation regarding the humanitarian problem," one said.

"There is not necessarily a role for significant numbers of the military forces to enable or protect aid. That is a revelation of the last few days."

The decision to put troops on 48-hour deployment notice was so they could react to the speed of political decisions, he added.