Author: By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent
Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton highlighted how the Israeli Air Force used the internet in the battle over international public opinion during last year’s conflict as an example of harnessing new technology.
Read more on Twitter ‘is a weapon in cyber warfare’…
Author: By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent
Since then he has returned home, got married, had a baby and volunteered to go
back with the next brigade deploying to the frontline, an example of how the
Afghan war has become the defining feature in a British soldier?s life.
The aim is to retake Marjah, an area in Helmand which passed into Taliban hands several years ago. A few preliminary probing actions have taken place around the enclave. Nato aircraft have been dropping leaflets on the town telling the civilian population to leave, asking the insurgents to lay down their arms and join a reconciliation process.
Read more on Nato’s show of force is also about winning hearts and minds…
Author: By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent
The operation, the biggest in southern Afghanistan since the invasion nine years ago, is a key part of Nato plans to take over enemy positions before opening negotiations with elements of the Taliban.
Author: By Kim Sengupta in Kabul
The announcement that the 200th member of the British forces has been killed
in combat in the conflict ? the seventh to die in four days ? came on
Remembrance Sunday with public figures in the UK questioning the further
involvement and yet another opinion poll showing a majority want troops to
be pulled out.
Read more on US likely to dispatch 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan…
Author: By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent
The decision to deploy up to 1,000 more troops is likely to be made after a cabinet meeting on the conflict within the next seven days. Ministers had indicated that no more forces would be deployed while a shortfall remained in providing enough armoured vehicles for protection against roadside bombs, which have claimed 80 per cent of recent British lives lost.
Read more on Chastened Brown set to send more troops to Afghanistan…
Author: By Rupert Cornwell and Julius Cavendish in Kabul
Even before the deliberations began, the deteriorating situation on the ground was underlined by a roadside bomb, believed to have been placed by Taliban insurgents, that killed at least 30 civilians travelling on a bus from Herat to Kandahar.
Read more on Crucial talks begin on US strategy in Afghanistan…
Author: Press Association and Reuters
The soldier, from the Joint Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group, was
killed on patrol in central Helmand yesterday afternoon.
His death takes the number of service personnel to be killed in Afghanistan
since the start of operations in 2001 to 187.
Read more on UK bomb disposal soldier killed in Afghanistan…
Author: By Kim Sengupta defence correspondent
Twenty-four thousand separate pieces of wiring are being taken out of every helicopter in the grounded fleet of Chinooks ? replacing advanced hybrid digital technology with older analogue ? in an attempt to get the aircraft ready for service, the Commons’ Defence Select Committee was told.
Read more on Revealed: scandal of UK’s grounded helicopter fleet…
Author: By Michael Stott, Reuters
A US official told Reuters that negotiators from both sides had agreed the
text of an outline deal on cutting Russian and US nuclear arsenals to put to
the two presidents.
