Smash hit

Cabinet insiders say that while there has been no opposition from ministers to the mission, some believe that its purpose could have been better explained. Mr Brown is expected to use his Commons statement on the G8 summit today to say that the case for involvement in Afghanistan is the same as it was in 2001 — to take on the terrorist threat at source and prevent attacks in Britain and elsewhere.

General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, former Chief of the Defence Staff, has accused the Treasury of being unsympathetic to the war and called for more troops.

His views echo those of General Sir Richard Dannatt, the outgoing Chief of the General Staff, who asked in March for at least 2,000 more troops. General Sir David Richards, who will succeed General Dannatt next month, is also in favour of sending reinforcements. However, the Ministry of Defence insisted that the brigade commander in Helmand had not requested more troops.

Lord King of Bridgwater, a former Conservative Defence Secretary, yesterday became the latest senior figure to criticise the conduct of the campaign, saying that serious political mistakes had been made by the Government. There had never been enough troops on the ground and the force was suffering from a critical shortage of helicopters, he said.

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David Cameron said it was a “scandal” that British commanders still lacked sufficient helicopters to enable their troops to move around Helmand with a degree of safety.

Paddy Ashdown, the former Lib Dem leader whose appointment as a United Nations envoy to Afghanistan was blocked by President Karzai, said that the UK and its allies had set "ludicrously over-ambitious targets", and had set themselves up for failure.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, insisted that troops would get whatever equipment they needed.

There are 9,000 servicemen in Afghanistan but that will drop to 8,300 after the presidential elections next month.

The latest deaths brought the total number of British military fatalities in Afghanistan since the start of operations in 2001 to 184 — surpassing the 179 who died in Iraq.

The Stop the War Coalition will stage a demonstration outside Downing Street today, demanding that the troops are brought home.

Despite fears in Whitehall that public support for the campaign in Afghanistan is ebbing away in the face of the lengthening list of fatalities, the latest poll on the issue shows that backing has held firm.

The survey, carried out by ICM for The Guardian as news broke of the eight casualties at the end of last week, found that support for Britain’s role was 46 per cent — up 15 per cent from 2006 when ICM last questioned the public.

Opposition to the war came in at 47 per cent, a drop of 6 per cent over the same period.

Around 42 per cent of respondents were in favour of the immediate withdrawal of British troops, with another 14 per cent wanting them home by the end of the year. These figures are almost identical to ICM’s 2006 results.

The pollster questioned 1,000 adults on July 10 and 11 for the survey. Six per cent of respondents said that they had no idea why British troops had been sent to Afghanistan.

Four-fifths thought that the conflict was part of the international fight against al-Qaeda and more than half of people, or 58 per cent, thought that Britain was there to fight the illegal drugs trade.

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