BRITISH forces are facing the alarming prospect of fighting two simultaneous counter-insurgency wars this summer after a sharp escalation of violence in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Despite government assurances that British soldiers can tackle two combat roles at once, there is growing concern among senior officers, diplomats and politicians that overstretched forces may be left exposed in two of the most dangerous countries of the world.
With 8,000 troops in Iraq and more than 4,000 in Afghanistan, the Army has not had to conduct two overseas campaigns of this magnitude for about 40 years, when it was fighting in Aden and Borneo.
The scale of the danger facing British forces in Afghanistan became clear yesterday when more than 100 people were killed across the country in the biggest offensive by the Taleban movement since it was driven from power five years ago. British forces have been ordered to pacify the large and restless province of Helmand, where one of the bloodiest incursions took place.
Hundreds of fighters in robes and black turbans rolled into the town of Musa Qala by day in four-wheel drive pick-up trucks and motorbikes weighed down by heavy machineguns and rocket launchers.
After almost ten hours of fighting at least 40 Taleban rebels were dead in Musa Qula, along with 13 police and an unknown number of civilians.
Amir Muhammad Akhunzaba, the deputy governor of Helmand, said the fighting was the worst in five years, but the Taleban issued a warning that there was more to come.
“This is a war,” Muhammad Hanif, the Taleban spokesman and close aide of the reclusive Taleban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, told The Times via satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.
“The British are not here as peacekeepers. They are here with the occupier, the American superpower. They are allied with the superpower so we don’t care about them. If they are with the Americans we can and will fight face to face,” he said.
Dr Hanif also claimed that suicide bombers were “queuing up” to join the Taleban and that they now had anti-aircraft weaponry in their arsenal.
Lieutenant-General David Barno, until recently the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, urged British and other Nato forces that are taking over from American troops to meet the Taleban challenge. He said the movement was “clever” at exploiting any military or political weakness.
“I have great confidence in the Nato effort, but as the transition unfolds [with Nato taking over more regions in Afghanistan], the key will be to maintain a strong resolve in the face of the Taleban attacks,” he told The Times.
But Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, said that there appeared to be “complete confusion” about the British objectives, which include reconstruction, military training, assisting in poppy eradication and counter-insurgency.
“The Government has two duties: to maximise the success of the mission and to minimise the threat to our forces, and the danger is that it could fail with both,” Dr Fox said.
The fighting in Afghanistan coincided with more violence in southern Iraq, from where the bodies of five of the seven British soldiers killed there this month were flown home yesterday with full military honours.
They were among 13 coalition soldiers killed in the four southern provinces of Basra, Muthanna, Maysan and Dhiqar in last month — seven British, four Italians, one Romanian and one Dane.
Basra’s police chief narrowly avoided an assassination attempt yesterday when a bomb exploded outside his home. Locals said that 20 local police officers and dozens of civilians had been killed this month, prompting thousands of demonstrators to take to the streets on Wednesday demanding that the Iraqi army be deployed to restore order.
Des Browne, the new Defence Secretary, who is making his first visit to Basra, insisted: “Basra is calm and British forces are working hand in hand with their Iraqi and coalition partners. Suggestions that the city is, in some way, out of control are ridiculous.”
He attributed the violence to a power struggle in the south caused by the failure to form a new Government of national unity in Baghdad.
Mr Browne’s assessment was directly contradicted by a senior British diplomat, who accused the Government of being in denial about the predicament of British forces in Iraq.
“It is an utter disaster,” the diplomat told The Times. “It reminds me of Palestine in 1946. British troops are reduced to conducting force protection [of their bases]. The telegrams from Iraq make very depressing reading.”
Locals in Basra seemed to agree, and gave a bleak description of life in a city where the general populace live in fear of shadowy militias, corrupt police and death squads that roam the streets in Toyota SUVs nicknamed “al Bata” (the Duck).
Abu Safaa, 62, a retired Sunni Muslim teacher said that he had decided to flee Basra because he feared the Shia Muslim militias, who are blamed for killing 11 Sunni civilians in the past two weeks.
“The situation here is getting worse every day,” he said. “I do not feel safe living in this city any more although I spent 30 years here and nobody asked me before whether I was Sunni or Shia. But now I’m really scared and I cannot stay here anymore. We are horrified.”
Sunnis are not the only victims of the death squads. Late on Wednesday Nazar Abdulzahra, the Shia coach of Basra’s biggest football team, al-Minaa, was shot dead by men driving one of the dreaded “ducks”.
“This duck is becoming a nightmare for us,” the dead football coach’s cousin, Jassem, said yesterday.
Adnan Dulaimi, a Sunni politician, deplored Basra’s descent into mayhem in a newspaper editorial on Tuesday. “The situation in Basra has become unbearable as bloodshed becomes a daily routine, while nobody puts an end to this deterioration of security,” he wrote.
British forces are caught in the middle of the conflict, trying to offer security to the local population, while attempting to train the security forces and weed out suspected militiamen from the ranks of the police.
Brigadier General James Everard, commander of the 20th Armoured Brigade in Basra, said: “We are waiting for that central government to form and offer a lead of strength, vision and purpose. I’m hoping they do that and everything will fall into line. At the moment, you’ve got people treading water or worse,” he said.
In London, politicians are growing concerned that the Army is overstretched in two difficult, dangerous conflicts that are likely to drag on for years to come. Britain plans to reduce its forces in Iraq this year, but is committed to keeping a sizeable force for “as long as necessary”.
The violence in Afghanistan has raised concerns that there are too few troops with not enough firepower. Patrick Mercer, the Conservative MP for Newark and a former army officer, said: “We now have two fronts where violence is increasing. We don’t know what we have let ourselves in for, and I think Afghanistan is going to be hugely challenging.
“There is grave disquiet over whether there are enough troops and airlift capacity.” Michael Moore, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: “I don’t think we can be under any illusions about how dangerous this mission in Afghanistan is.”
