Tory MP calls for more helicopters to evade bomb attacks

Published on Sunday 5 July 2009 22:12

AN ARMED forces expert last night called for more helicopters to be deployed to Afghanistan to curb the growing number of UK troop deaths from attacks on armoured vehicles.

Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, a former infantry regiment commanding officer and chairman of Westminster's counter-terrorism sub-committee, told The Scotsman that recent deaths of soldiers in armoured vehicles proved the case for greater use of air transport to evade Taleban attacks.

Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Thorneloe and Trooper Joshua Hammond were killed last week when their armoured Viking track vehicle was blown up by a bomb in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

The Viking vehicles are due to be replaced next year by more than 100 larger and more heavily armoured tracked vehicles to be known as Warthogs.

"The answer is not bigger armoured vehicles but more helicopters," said Mr Mercer.

But Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has defended the level of protection given to British troops in Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of the Viking attacks, he said: "If you ask anyone in Afghanistan, they say our forces there are better equipped than they have ever been."