Soldier asks defence secretary for more troops

A British soldier in Afghanistan has pleaded to defence secretary Bob Ainsworth to send more troops to the country.

Mr Ainsworth was on a surprise visit to Helmand Province, along with home secretary Alam Johnson.

During the trip the minister asked Staff Sgt Kim Hughes, a bomb disposal expert, what was top of his list of things he felt were needed in the fight against the Taliban.

Mr Ainsworth asked: 'So what's your top desire from right here at the chalkface – what would you have more of today?'

Staff Sgt Hughes simply replied: 'More troops on the ground.'

To which, Mr Ainsworth replied: 'People? Not equipment?' and Staff Sgt Hughes said: 'More equipment's ideal, I mean we have lightweight equipment coming in gradually... but more troops on the ground, more equipment, less troops on the ground, less equipment.'

He added: 'If you give us more troops, we can form a counter-IED (improvised explosive device) taskforce to train ground troops better.'

The defence secretary countered by saying Britain could not act alone in sending more troops into Afghanistan, and greater deployments would have to part of a wider coalition effort.

'We have got to try to get others to do their share and the other thing we have got to think about is how quickly we do it... it takes time, you can throw money at this and it still takes time,' he said.

The frank exchange between Staff Sgt Hughes and Mr Ainsworth comes as public backing for the ongoing military campaign in Afghanistan begins to waver.

National elections held in August were supposed to symbolise the positive steps the country had made in developing a greater democratic system and shaking free from the influence of the Taliban.

However, with allegations of wide-spread vote-rigging there are increasing concerns about the actual progress being made by the coalition forces.