Defence Secretary Liam Fox has defended the presence of British troops in Afghanistan, and said operations there have prevented Al Qaeda and other terrorists form using the country as a bases.
Interviewed on BBC Radio’s Today programme,Dr Fox said that UK forces were “not desperate” to leave Afghanistan and were there to secure the UK’s national security.
He said it was a testament to the success of the UK’s operations there that Al Qaeda was not organizing in the country.
Dr Fox was interviewed the day after three members of the Gurkha Rifles were killed by a member of the Afghan army being trained by British troops.
He told Today "We went to prevent al-Qaeda from having an open space in which to operate. We need to follow that up with a stable Afghan state so that it doesn't return to the state it was before.
"We're in Afghanistan as a matter of national security. Success in that national security context is a stable enough Afghanistan, able to manage its own internal and external security without reference to foreign forces."
But as I have argued here, while fighting a local insurgency by the Taliban, UK and US forces in country may be being distracted from Al Qaeda and other international terrorists who can use other failed or failing states as a base.
Attacks today in Yemen suggest that terror groups with an international outlook, unlike the Taliban, are still very much alive and operational.
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