News Brief – September 5, 2007
The old saying “out of the frying pan and into the fire” could well apply to the predicament the British army finds it’s in.
As British forces pull back from Basra, Iraq, to a central base outside the city and contemplate the prospect of a complete withdrawal from Iraq. The possibility of them being redeployed and facing more intense conflict in Afghanistan is becoming a tangible reality.
The mounting British casualties in Afghanistan serve to underline this.
Late Wednesday afternoon, Britain Ministry of Defence announced the deaths of two more British soldiers in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province.
The two men were said to be on in a routine patrol when their vehicle was attacked with rockets and machine gun fire.
A third British soldier and a civilian interpreter were reported injured in the same incident.
The latest deaths bring to 74 the total of British servicemen and women killed in Afghanistan to 74 since November 2001.
Last week a gunner in the RAF regiment and an Afghan civilian interpreter were killed in an explosion at Nato's main airfield at Kandahar, also in Helmand province.
Sadly they won’t be last and within the next year or two this writer expects to see much more intense fighting in Afghanistan.
They say people get the leaders they deserve and Britons voted Tony Blair in for a record term of office. Well this is Tony Blair’s REAL LEGACY.
Last updated 07/09/2007
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