Britain to spend more in Afghanistan to protect troops

The 150 million pounds over three years will be funded through a reprioritization of the defense budget, the official said, without giving further details. Many of the 100 British troops killed in Afghanistan this year were victims of roadside bombs planted by the Taliban.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, facing an uphill battle to win an election due by next June, has been accused of failing to give British soldiers enough protection from the bombs.

Brown and Afghan President Hamid Karzai met at an Afghan air base on Sunday, aiming to fix a relationship that has grown bitter as the Afghan war grows deadlier and more unpopular. Brown will make a separate statement to parliament on Monday on last week’s European Union summit and plans to speed up training of Afghan security forces.

The 150 million pound package will include funding for new facilities for training in Britain on countering roadside bombs and a new analysis centre to interpret data from British surveillance and intelligence activities in Afghanistan. British forces are using unmanned planes or drones to track suspicious activity that could point to bombs being planted. British forces have also brought in robots to help locate roadside bombs.

Top US defense official visits Afghanistan

Meanwhile, The Pentagon’s top military officer visited Afghanistan on on Monday as the first of 30,000 US reinforcements prepared to deploy to the 8-year-old war.

Adm. Mike Mullen arrived in the Afghan capital Kabul for a series of meetings with the government of President Hamid Karzai, a spokesman for the international coalition force said.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman said last week 16,000 troops have received orders for Afghanistan since President Barack Obama announced his new war strategy. The first to be deployed -- a battalion of Marines -- are to arrive in southern Afghanistan this week. Tens of thousands of tons of construction materials, winter gear and other equipment also are in the pipeline.

Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the international force, said US troops will begin arriving over the next week or so.

“By the middle of summer, you should see most of the forces that have been pledged arrive here in Afghanistan,” Shanks told a joint NATO-Afghan press conference shortly after Mullen arrived.

Shanks said the new troops would be sent mainly to the south, but he would not disclose exact locations.

Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, spokesman of the Ministry of Defense, said the troop buildup, a decrease in poppy cultivation in southern Afghanistan, and increased pressure on the hotbeds of the insurgency would yield improved security by the summer of 2010.

While an uptick in violence was likely this spring as the weather warms, security would improve by next summer, he said.

“We are slowly taking the responsibility from the international community,” Azimi said. “Joint operations will continue for the next two years, but within four years, all operations will be led by the Afghan forces and they will call on the international forces if they are needed.”

The 10,000-member Afghan army is expected to swell to 150,000 by March 2011.

Azimi said 455 members of the Afghan National Army have died so far this year. In the past eight years, 1,601 Afghan soldiers have been killed.

Despite the danger, Gen. Mohammad Hbraim Ahmadzai, deputy commander of recruiting for the Afghan National Army, said recruitment was on the rise, spurred by a campaign in mosques and other public places. More than 7,050 new soldiers were recruited since the end of November, Ahmadzai said.

A raise in pay has also helped retain soldiers in the force, he said.

Obama ordered the American troop surge to try to curb the burgeoning Taliban insurgency as the bloodiest year of the Afghan war draws to a close.