Families of Afghanistan victims react angrily as British troops sent back to Helmand to help save Sangin

By Anonymous Tuesday, December 22, 2015

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One mother feels "desperate sense of waste and fear we are still not learning lessons" as military advisers deployed back to Helmand province to help in fight against Taliban

Library image of British troops in Helmand, Afghanistan Photo: PA

Barney Henderson, Ben Farmer and Laura Hughes

12:11PM GMT 22 Dec 2015

The mother of a British soldier maimed during the UK's eight-year-long Helmand campaign has spoken of her anger and feeling of waste after the town of Sangin was overrun by the Taliban.

Heavy fighting is continuing in the notorious town where fighting claimed the lives of 106 British troops, as the Afghan government attempts to relieve besieged pockets of troops.

British military advisers have flown from Kabul back to Helmand as part of a 300-strong Nato team trying to prop up Afghan forces in the district.

The MoD refused to comment on reports SAS troops were fighting in the area, but the Telegraph understands they are incorrect.

The majority of the town has been overrun by Taliban fighters and Afghan forces holding out in the remaining pockets are under siege.

• Afghanistan: The uncertain legacy of a flawed campaign

Sangin saw the heaviest fighting of the Afghan campaign for Britain and claimed 106 British troops between 2006 and 2010.

The mother of one soldier badly injured in Afghanistan said news of the fall of the town brought a deep sense of anger.

Diane Dernie, mother of Ben Parkinson, who lost both legs and suffered brain damage near Sangin in 2006, said she felt "a desperate sense of waste and fear that we are still not learning lessons".

She said the Afghan campaign had been "under funded, under defined and under supported".

The Taliban had reportedly blocked all major roads leading to Sangin district centre for the past few weeks  Photo: EPA

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence in London said: "A small number of UK personnel have deployed to Camp Shorabak in Helmand province in an advisory role.

"These personnel are part of a larger Nato team which is providing advice to the Afghan National Army. They are not deployed in a combat role and will not deploy outside the camp."

'Additional US special forces have been sent to augment our Train, Advise, and Assist mission in Helmand'

US military spokesman

Security in Helmand has unravelled in the past 12 months since British and US forces pulled out of the province in October 2014. Several districts have briefly fallen and there has been heavy fighting close to Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.

Britain has around 450 troops in the Afghan capital, Kabul, advising local troops and security forces, as well as a small special forces unit working alongside the Americans.

On Sunday, some 14 months after the departure of British combat troops from Afghanistan, Helmand's deputy governor, Mohammad Jan Rasulyar, was pleading with the Afghan government to send reinforcements, after the deaths of some 90 members of the Afghan security forces in the previous two days.

The Wall Street Journal reported that at least three American Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha units, known as A-Teams, have been deployed in the area.

On Monday, local residents reported crippling food shortages in Sangin district, long seen as a hornet's nest of insurgent activity, after the Taliban began storming government buildings on Sunday.

"The Taliban have captured the police headquarters, the governor's office as well as the intelligence agency building in Sangin," deputy Helmand governor Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar told AFP.

"Fighting is escalating in the district."

General Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, former Chief of the Defence Staff and top Nato commander in Nato commander in Afghanistan, told The Times that Britain and its allies should be prepared to increase the number of support troops in the country if needed.

Library image of British troops in Afghanistan  Photo: Christopher Pledger/The Telegraph

He said: "It is important that the West honours its commitment to protect the Afghan people as well as the memory of those who fought and died there to keep us safe from extremism."

Captain Doug Beattie, who served in southern Afghanistan, added: "It is looking like all of that blood, sweat and toil could have been for nothing.

"You have to ask yourself the question: why is it all failing? Was it all for nothing?"

From the start of operations in October 2001, 456 British forces personnel or MoD civilians were killed while serving in Afghanistan.

Lord Dannatt  Photo: REUTERS

The former head of the Army told the BBC's today programme that Britain had "limited resources" since the army was cut by 20 per cent and the Government "must decide what their priority is."

Lord Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff, said he personally believed Syria and Libya were more of a priority than Afghanistan.

He said: “I think the Government has a strategic choice that it’s going to have to have to think long and hard about. The Government has got to decide what its priority is.

“Something, however, must be done, because just looking at what is going on in the wider world against the jihadi threat - looking at our television screens, ringing our hands and shaking our heads will not make it go away.

"We have got to do more right across the board. The Government has got to decide where we are going to do it, and how much we are going to do it. Do we really actually want to win this?”

“My own view is that I think Afghanistan now is of a lower priority than thinking about Libya and possibly thinking about Syria.”

Julian Lewis, the Conservative chair of the defence select committee, told the BBC: "We should resist getting drawn in permanently to build up a nation that's not ready for it."

He added that what Britain needed was "a mixture of special forces supported by air power in support of friendly ground forces."