Americans say British cannot hold Afghan siege city

www.timesonline.co.uk
BRITAIN is under pressure to give up an Afghan town where it has fought numerous bloody battles because the Americans claim the army is too overstretched to hold on to it.US commanders want to take control of Musa Qala in northern Helmand province, arguing that Britain’s forces are already hard-pressed trying to control the so-called green zone further south.Musa Qala has great symbolic importance for the British, who have lost 18 soldiers there. They seized it from the Taliban in 2006 before pulling out in a deal with local elders. The agreement broke down, however, and it took 5,000 men to recapture the town of 50,000 inhabitants in 2007.
Musa Qala is 50 miles north of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, and is one of the most northerly British outposts.The recent Operation Panther’s Claw, which cleared the Taliban from 150 square miles of the green zone north and northwest of Lashkar Gah, has left troops exhausted.British defence sources said they barely had enough men to mount “framework patrols” to secure the cleared area. Brigadier Tim Radford, the British commander on the ground, is thought likely to welcome a US takeover of the town to ease pressure on his troops.
However, senior officers in Britain are resisting the American attempt to take Musa Qala, believing it will give the Treasury an excuse to try to cut spending on the war.Commanders at Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) in Northwood, west London, are “determined not to give up another square inch of the UK area to the Americans”, one source said.“We would be far better off without Musa Qala,” the source added. “The Americans want us to concentrate on the green zone from Lash up to Sangin. It’s a sensible move. It will take the pressure off.”
The Ministry of Defence said “no definitive decision” had been made on Musa Qala, which was one of several issues, including troop numbers, that would wait until after the Afghan elections and the results of the “60day review” by General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander.
McChrystal will recommend a big increase in the number of Afghan army and police from 160,000 to about 400,000. That would require thousands of new trainers, with Britain already under pressure to supply 2,000. The government is reluctant to send any further troops.The row over Musa Qala has exposed the extent to which commanders in Britain have been pushed aside. In theory PJHQ controls all British military operations abroad, but is increasingly toothless. With the Americans taking control of most of Helmand, it has lost much of its role.Last week British troops were concentrating on routine patrols. Under the US “clear, hold and build” tactics, their priority is to ensure that the area does not fall back under enemy control.The aim in this week’s elections is to stay in the background with local police manning polling stations and Afghan soldiers taking the lead on security. The British role will be restricted to providing aerial surveillance and rapid reaction forces in an mergency.
Musa Qala has been at the forefront of Britain’s war. When troops first moved into Helmand in the spring of 2006, they planned to concentrate on providing security in the Lashkar Gah area, allowing reconstruction.
However, President Hamid Karzai felt the troops should enforce his writ across Taliban-held territory and, backed by London, insisted they protect government buildings in the four northern Helmand towns of Now Zad, Sangin, Kajaki and Musa Qala.