Five long years may have passed after the fall of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, Afghanistan is still struggling to keep the security and reconstruction challenges up even with the regular economic as well as military support from NATO, the US, the Great Britain and the UN.
Al-Qaeda is once again raising its head and regrouping their fighters across the borders with the help of Pakistani tribal groups and the poppy cultivators or drug traffickers in the southern frontier of Afghanistan.
According to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials, After a somewhat leave of absence, that sinister is rearing its ugly head again: Al-Qaeda. Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once-battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border despite more than five years of a sustained American-led campaign to weaken it.
Sensing another Taliban led, which is busy reorganizing their fighters around the Pakistani borders, insurgence or armed attack, the British officials has planned to reinforce their troops, with some advanced and accomplished armors, artillery and weapons, deployed in Afghanistan. The latest British equipments and reinforcements will comprise:
Latest equipments:
* Four M270 guided multiple launch rocket systems: range of 70kms, GPS-guided rockets. A launcher firing twelve rockets can blanket a square kilometer.
* Enhanced Sea King helicopters: can carry 27 troops. Travels at 125knots. Armed with 7.62mm machine guns
* Four Harrier GR9: Max speed 650mph. Can carry 500lb and 1,000lb Paveway smart bombs for close support of infantry
* 14 Warrior armored vehicles: equipped with 30mm Rarden cannon and 7.26 chain gun. Carry an infantry section of eight men.
* L118 light gun: 105mm howitzer with range of 17km. Can fire eight rounds of high explosive a minute.
Reinforcements:
* 1 Bn Royal Welsh; 1Bn Scots Guards, Warrior company; 19 Rgt Royal Artillery ; battery of light guns; 39Rgt Royal Artillery, battery of MLRS
* 5 Rgt Royal Artillery; brigade surveillance group; 846 Naval Air Squadron; four Sea Kings
Britain may equip their troops with the advanced warfare technology and some of the most sophisticated weapons, the major concern in Afghanistan (or even in the Middle-east) is the number of troops, which is quite low, even with the new additions, than the required figure for crushing any possible Talibani or Al-Qaeda uprisings in the coming future.
