Kabul: As Afghan forces officially took over control of security across their country from Nato troops, senior British military officials described an unprecedented operation leading to a virtually invisible “UK footprint” there.
Equipment ranging from heavily-armoured trucks to the brass casing of spent bullets — the market for brass is “extraordinarily good” now, observed a British brigadier — will be returned to the UK by air, road, and rail, at a cost unofficially estimated at between £600m and £2bn.
Brigadier Duncan Capps has been in charge of the project, spending the last six months in British bases in Lashkar Gar and Camp Bastion in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. “As a logistician”, he said, he found “Afghanistan a most difficult place to operate, hot and high, and without a port.”
Between now and December next year when all foreign troops will have ended their combat role, British forces will have sent back to the UK 2,700 vehicles by air and other kit by road through Pakistan to the port of Karachi, or north through central Asia by road and rail to Riga, the capital of Latvia on the Baltic, for onward shipment to Southampton.
4,500 containers or TEUs, as the Ministry of Defence calls them (the acronym stands for Twenty Foot Equivalent Units), will be packed with small arms, ammo, quad bikes, and other less valuable kit, and put on trucks.
More than 1,000 TEUs have already been despatched to the UK as have 625 vehicles. The equipment has to be “bio washed” before it enters the UK to meet Department for Environment standards. No “warlike” goods will be sent via the potentially dangerous Pakistani route, Capps said.
The number of patrol bases occupied by British troops has already fallen from 137 at the height of the conflict two years ago, to 13. The number will fall further to just four by end of the year.
The main task for British - and US - troops after 2014 will be to continue mentoring and training Afghan forces. Britain has contributed to an officer training college in Kabul, dubbed a “Sandhurst in the sand”. Britain could also maintain a discreet presence of special forces there, as the US is expected to.
Very little will be “gifted” to Afghan forces, Capps said. What will includes beds, night sites, and mine detecting equipment. Capps suggested that expensive kit, including armoured vehicles paid for by British taxpayers will be sent home.
GUARDIAN NEWS
