British task force not ready for land assault

War on Terrorism: Strategy

The war in Afghanistan is running into an array of problems: a seeming lack of strategy, an absence of any significant breakthrough on the ground, and conflicting signals from political and military leaders.

Against this backdrop, further evidence emerged in Oman yesterday that any British land action in Afghanistan is a considerable time away.

Military sources disclosed that the 238 Marines who will form the nucleus of the strike force will undertake a live-fire exercise until next week and then be allowed 10 days' leave.

The men have already spent six weeks in Oman, taking part in Exercise Saif Sareea II, the biggest deployment of British troops since the Falklands which has turned into a rehearsal for a real war.

British special forces and the Marines are expected to undertake some of the most hazardous missions in the coming winter war, carrying out hit-and-run raids against the Taliban and their al-Qa'ida allies. But British military commanders are determined the troops should have the fullest possible preparations as well as rest, and the public should be made aware of the extreme difficulties of the task ahead.

Further training is also required. The aircraft carrier the HMS Illustrious is being stripped of its fixed-wing aircraft to make room for the combat and transport helicopters needed for Afghanistan. "There is planning to be done and planning to be ready to get the task force reconfigured," Rear Admiral James Burnell-Nugent, the officer in charge of the British task force, said. "This ship has got some training to do. Although she has a role as a commando carrier, she hasn't done it for a while and it is a very difficult role."

The admiral said he wanted to take the Marines on board Illustrious and the assault ship HMS Fearless as late as possible. Spending weeks on board would dull their skills and also lead to boredom, he said.

Forty-eight days after the terrorist attack on the US, the politicians are still talking a good war. But senior military officers are increasingly cautious about the outcome and have given up any thought of a swift victory. They also feel that realpolitik by the US and British governments, often conducted in contradictory fashions, is hampering their operations.

Weeks of bombing have not broken the Taliban or led to a popular revolt, as some politicians, especially in Washington, had predicted.

The intended transition from the air to a ground campaign has been anything but smooth. The first, and only, commando raid inside Afghanistan almost ended in disaster because of faulty intelligence. The raid was a purely cosmetic one for the benefit of the media and the public on a target, which intelligence had claimed, would be poorly defended. The tenacity of the Taliban in fighting back has so alarmed the Pentagon that no further raids have taken place. The lack of intelligence remains the same.

Also noticeable by its absence is any significant advance by the Northern Alliance which was supposed to have a pincer effect, with the air strikes, on the Afghan regime. The military marginally blamed the politicians for this. The attitude of Washington and London towards the Alliance has taken several twists and a few new turns. In the immediate aftermath of 11 September, the military was told to establish contact with them as potential allies. This was then abandoned due to Pakistani pressure, only to be reactivated later.

The present Western stance appears to be that the Alliance can take Mazar-i-Sharif, and the military airfield there can then be used by the Allies, but they must not march on Kabul. The Alliance has, of course, failed to do either.

Both British and American sources say the relationship between the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and the military hierarchy, especially the Chief of Staff, General Richard Myers, is frosty at best and combustible at worst.

In Britain the deployment of ground forces was delayed by disputes between the Army and the Navy on whether paratroopers or Marines should be the combat troops. The Navy seems to have won.