Three soldiers maimed each day in Afghanistan

THE head of the army has demanded more equipment to tackle the home-made bombs which have proved deadly in Afghanistan after figures showed that three British soldiers were now being maimed every day.

General Sir Richard Dannatt said countering improvised explosive devices was a "major tactical battle that we have got to win" and called for increased levels of surveillance to locate the bombs and the insurgents laying them.

The outgoing chief of the army also said that any increase in the number of troops would have to be matched by more kit to ensure they were appropriately equipped.

He spoke after Ministry of Defence figures revealed that the rate of injuries for British soldiers in Afghanistan had doubled in just one month, in the violent run-up to the Afghan presidential elections.

The latest casualty figures show that 94 soldiers were injured in July – the bloodiest month to date in the war in Afghanistan – compared with 46 in June.

So far this year, 236 troops have been hurt in battle, more than a total of 235 for the whole of last year.

Almost 1,000 British troops have been killed or wounded in action since the start of the war in Afghanistan in 2001.

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth brushed off the dire injury statistics, insisting that the war was "winnable".

However, the challenge posed to British forces was also highlighted in the surge in the number of helicopter evacuations, or casevacs, from 128 to 190. During July, 19 soldiers suffered life-threatening injuries, while a further 12 had serious wounds.

The rise in British casualties has been partly blamed on a tactical decision to pull some British units out of Sangin.

Fourteen British soldiers were killed in five weeks in the area, while Sangin-based troops were redeployed to take part in Operation Panther's Claw, which was meant to drive the Taleban out of key strongholds ahead of the elections, reports suggested.

While Mr Ainsworth said there was no room for complacency, he added: "I think this is do-able, I think this is winnable, I think we have to back our troops and we have to stay with it."

Mr Ainsworth was embroiled in controversy after he appeared to criticise as "ludicrous" claims by defence chiefs that British troops would remain in Afghanistan for up to 40 years.

Yesterday, he was less defiant. "I don't think I can tie myself to a specific timetable. Over the next couple of years, I profoundly believe that we can make progress in Afghanistan," he said.

"That isn't to say that we will be able to draw back entirely, but I think we will see them (the Afghans] taking a growing share of the responsibility."

The Defence Secretary had insisted the previous day that troops could start to be pulled from the frontline in a year. But yesterday Gen Dannatt dismissed the optimistic forecast and said the military involvement would continue at its current level of 9,000 troops for up to five years.

On a visit to a new centre for injured troops in Edinburgh, Gen Dannatt

said: "We have got to get it right. It will take a bit of time. We will go on doing, as the military, what we need to do until the Afghan capability is good enough to take over.

"That will continue for years," he added. "I don't want to put a figure on that, but certainly two to four years, three to five years, of this kind of level of commitment by the military."

But development efforts to overhaul the infrastructure in impoverished Afghanistan, which remains the fourth-poorest country on earth, could take up to 40 years, he admitted.

Meanwhile, US president Barack Obama yesterday warned that that the conflict in Afghanistan was a war of "necessity".

"This is not a war of choice," he said. "Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taleban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans."