Britain will not increase troop numbers in Afghanistan, despite the escalation in violent attacks by the Taleban, a senior defence official said yesterday.

There will be no transfer of soldiers from Iraq when Britain’s presence there is cut back next year, the official said. The current total of 8,000 troops in Afghanistan was the “absolute ceiling” for Britain’s contribution to the Nato operation, he said.

There had been widespread expectation that the reduction in troops in Iraq next year would lead to a mini-surge in reinforcements for Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where Britain’s military presence is concentrated. But it is now agreed that there will be no transfer of forces from one campaign to the other.

The Armed Forces had been operating beyond the Government’s planning assumptions (set in 1998) because of the twin operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the official said. The planned cutback in Iraq next year from 4,000 to “a few hundred” troops would have a beneficial effect across the Forces, he said, because the strain of running two simultaneous operations would be lifted.

Two years ago, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, said that the Army was operating at the limits of its capabilities.

The senior official said that the “fundamental change” in Britain’s military posture in Iraq, which Gordon Brown announced to the Commons in July, would begin to take effect in the latter part of next year. The anticipated 600-700 troops remaining in Iraq will be engaged in training the Iraqi Army’s 14th Division based in Basra.

The official said that the cutbacks could be justified because violence in Basra had been dramatically reduced, and the “IED [improvised explosive devices] networks had been disrupted.

The Americans are sending another 3,500 troops to Afghanistan in January and have promised to provide a further two combat brigades in due course.

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