UK mourns troops killed in Afghanistan
Updated on 05 November 2009
Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has led the tributes to five British soldiers shot by a policeman they were training in Afghanistan.
Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, Sergeant Matthew Telford and Guardsman Jimmy Major, of the Grenadier Guards, died alongside Corporal Steven Boote and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith, of the Royal Military Police.
Another six British soldiers and two Afghan policemen were wounded in the shooting at a police checkpoint in Nad-e-Ali in Helmand Province on Tuesday.
A Channel 4 News poll shows 73 per cent of people want British troops to return home from Afghanistan.
Mr Ainsworth said: said: "The memory of WO1 Darren Chant, Sgt Matthew Telford, Cpl Nicholas Webster-Smith, Cpl Steven Boote and Guardsman James Major will live on.
"They were men of courage who died building security in Afghanistan and protecting people in the UK from terrorism.
"My deepest sympathies and condolences lie with their grieving families, friends, and all those who served alongside them who will feel the pain of loss most intensely. They are in all our thoughts."
Meanwhile, the body of an explosives expert killed while defusing a bomb in Afghanistan has been returned home.
Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, 30, died on Saturday while trying to make safe an improvised explosive device in the Sangin region of Helmand province.
He was commanding an improvised explosive device disposal team (IEDD), conducting what the MoD described as a "manual route search" to clear devices near a base.
Sgt Schmid's body was repatriated this morning through RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire for a private ceremony at the base's chapel.
And in Fife, the funeral of 27-year-old Corporal Thomas Mason has been held.
He died weeks after being wounded in Afghanistan when he was caught by an improvised explosive device in Kandahar province.
Speaking on Channel 4 News, the armed forces minister Bill Rammell said: "I accept there is a constant duty for government ministers to keep explaining why we're in Afghanistan, why it's in or national interest, and if we go back to 2001 when the Taliban controlled the country, they give free reign to al-Qaeda to target this country along with others.
"Were we precipitously to withdraw along with 41 other nations, I have no doubt they would come back. We would be less safe in this country, there would be massive instability in Afghanistan and refugee flows across the borders, making Pakistan less safe with all the deangers that entails as well.
"So even in this week, when it's been hugely challenging, I believe this is about our national interest and I think we have to argue that very clearly.
"This was the crucible of terrorism. It is key in the fight aganist the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But what I think what we need to persuade people and convince them of is that we do not want our troops to be there forever.
"Our whole strategy is built upon the concept of trying to build up the capability of the through their police force and through their army so they can take up responsibility, they can make us safer in the process and our forces can then withdraw.
"We have massivley increased our resources for the security services to make us safer within this country.
"This is about our national security, we want to build up that Afghan capability so they can take this responsibility for themselves.
"There are 41 other nations that are there with us in Afghanistan and there needs to be equitable burden sharing as we take this forward."
Conservative MP Adam Holloway said: "We don't help sensible debate by exaggerating things. For the last four years it has been presented that either we are there doing what we are, fighting, or al-Qaeda comes back. There is a position between those two things.
"Al-Qaeda has been spread across the world. Of course there are some in Afghanistan because your enemy's enemy is your friend, but actually we should be expending that effort in a dozen other places.
"It just doesn't help if we exaggerate things.
"We've got to see this in the context of the wider struggle aginst political Islam.
"We are driving radicalisation by picking, in my view, some uneccessary fights with tribesmen.
"I think the McChrystal plan looks brilliant on paper but it's really only the things that we said we were doing all along and we haven't done very well.
"This idea of a strong, stable Afghan government sounds brilliant but if you're in a Pashtun area, the last thing you want is central government.
"We've fuelled an insurgency, now we're trying to build a gigantic army to fight an insurgency that, to some extent, we've fuelled. It's bonkers.
"I think we should focus on our key things, which are stopping anybody being able to present an international threat out there, dealing with the Pakistani government and legitimate security concerns and get the spooks out there making deals with these people.
"I want to win the struggle against political Islam across the region and I want to win in Afghanistan.
"You do not win by imposing an unpopular, corrupt central government on a tribal people who do not want it and by imposing an outside army on them."
