By IRNA
London : The UK is sending extra firepower to Afghanistan at the next redeployment of troops in April, although the total number will remain the same at around 7,700, it was reported Tuesday.
According to the Guardian newspaper, an announcement is imminent that all three regular battalions of the elite Parachute Regiment will provide the backbone of 16 Air Assault Brigade when it takes over from the existing UK infantry brigade based in Helmand.
It will be the first time so many paratroopers have been sent on a joint combat mission since the second world war over 60 years ago, the daily believed.
The report comes of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was holding talks with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband in London, when concern about the looming crisis in Afghanistan is expected to be at the top of the agenda.
His visit comes amid the escalating row over Nato troop reinforcements and growing concern that the entire international stabilization strategy is in danger of failing.
Their meeting come of the eve of Nato defence ministers meeting in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius to try to find 7,500 more troops to reinforce the 42,000 already in Afghanistan.
Further crises have been triggered by Canada threatening to withdraw 2,500 troops from Kandahar, next to Helmand, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai vetoeing the appointment of Britain’s former UN High Representative Lord Ashdown as a ‘super envoy’ in Kabul.