LONDON – Britain is to send about 1,000 troops to join the U.S.-led ground war in Afghanistan, according to media reports Tuesday, but the Ministry of Defense said it had made no decisions.
Citing senior defense officials, the British Broadcasting Corp. said about 600 Royal Marine commandos and several hundred special forces personnel – currently taking part in a military exercise in Oman – would be deployed to join the ground assault.
Four British ships participating in the exercise, which ends this weekend, also will stay behind to join the Afghan campaign, the BBC said.
The Daily Telegraph and Guardian newspapers carried similar reports Tuesday.
Meanwhile, former foreign secretary Robin Cook suggested that there was still time for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to hang on to power, if it handed over Osama bin Laden.
“Even now, if Taliban was to agree it was not going to continue to shelter al-Qaida and it would surrender Osama bin Laden … to be brought to justice under due process of law, we could find a way forward,” Cook told reporters at Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official residence.
“This is not an operation to kill Osama bin Laden, and if he wants to make sure there is no such risk to him, there is a simple way out. That is for him to come forward, offer himself so that we can bring him to trial in a fair court, where evidence could be brought forward openly,” said Cook, who is now in charge of organizing the agenda of the House of Commons.
The government has not announced whether British troops will join the ground campaign, but says it remains an option. The Ministry of Defense said Tuesday that it was still assessing options, and that the reports were “speculative.”
Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said Monday that British forces were ready to move “at very short notice.”
“No specific decisions have been taken but clearly we are exploring all of the possibilities,” Hoon told BBC radio.
The chiefs of Britain’s Royal Navy and Royal Air Force were reported Monday to be drawing up plans for long-term military involvement in the war against terrorism.
“I have taken the prime minister at his word that it will go on for years, because I think it will,” Navy Rear Adm. Alan West told Britain’s Press Association in Muscat, Oman, during the military exercises. “I have looked at how to maintain levels of commitment for years.”
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