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Military expert Clive Fairweather predicts a rising tide of returning heroes who deserve the best care possible

Afghanistan will kill or maim 
another 1050 British soldiers

Exclusive
By Adam Docherty

BRITAIN could lose more troops in Afghanistan in the next four years than it has in the past nine.

That would in effect double the death rate.

And by the time our forces pull out in 2014, the army could have lost the equivalent of three battalions to death and injury.

That’s the shocking warning from leading defence analyst and former SAS deputy commander Clive Fairweather.

He’s been collating and interpreting Iraq/Afghanistan casualty rates for the last three years.

Mr Fairweather said, “It’s not unrealistic to expect up to 400 more UK deaths if present troop dispositions are maintained.

“Last week the death toll since 2001 topped the 330 mark. Around 400 were seriously wounded.”

Wounded

British forces are already down at least one battalion’s worth of troops — that’s 500 to 600 personnel — because of the casualties who will never fight again.

Mr Fairweather predicts another 650 will be seriously wounded by 2014. Added to the fatalities, that would be another two battalions’ worth.

Apart from the human tragedy, this will create a huge manpower deficit to make up — and it might not be, if recession-linked cuts are introduced.

The accelerating casualty rate has come about largely because of the roadside bombs used by local Taliban in the south of Afghanistan.

Occasional suicide bombers are also a serious threat.

Mr Fairweather says that despite their own heavy losses, the Taliban have been cleverly targeting British troops and vehicles to cause maximum national grief and dismay at home.

The death rate among UK troops was once almost non-existent, then became steady in 2006 when Defence Secretary John Reid committed troops to Helmand “without wishing to fire any shots”.

“Fighting season”

Since then it has been accelerating and this year has been the worst for fatalities since we entered Afghanistan in 2001. 

There is an average of two deaths a week — at times much higher — as this summer’s “fighting season” has unfolded following a short lull while the May poppy crop was gathered.

It remains to be seen whether the US surge in Afghanistan will have the decisive effect it did in Iraq, given the different geography and tribal arrangements.

Mr Fairweather said, “After nearly nine years of fighting, it may take much longer to see the positive effects of the surge, by which time Britain will be starting to leave.

“By leaving Sangin, the scene of much bloody combat, we may cut down on the appalling casualty rate.

“But no matter where our troops are stationed, the Taliban will continue to plant roadside bombs. Indeed they may try to increase the casualty rate to show it was they who pushed us out of the country.”

Priorities 

Mr Fairweather believes priority must be given to bomb-detecting equipment, sniffer dogs and the like. More helicopters and air power could also have a dramatic effect in reducing casualties.

Casualty rates will drop when areas are taken over by the Afghan National Army, but the question is whether that can be done in time. Some 90 per cent of Afghan troops are illiterate and their commanders admit more than a quarter are drug and alcohol addicts.

“It’s a race against time we owe the Afghan people to complete,” Mr Fairweather added. “But as the Afghans said when they were fighting the Russians, ‘They have the watches, we have the time’.”

The Soviets suffered more than 15,000 dead, lost more than 400 transport aircraft and helicopters and inflicted more than a million casualties on the Afghans.

For the rest of our exclusive report, buy a copy of the July 25 Sunday Post.