British forces need material, moral and strategic support

It is vital that the military prevent the Taliban taking control in Afghanistan, says former commander Richard Kemp

Colonel Richard Kemp

Taliban fighters in a madrasa near Kundoz. If they resumed control, international terrorist training and planning would return to Afghanistan, says Colonel Richard Kemp. Photograph: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad for the Guardian

On taking office the new defence secretary, Liam Fox, immediately made clear that our troops are fighting and dying in Afghanistan "so that the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened". A security rather than a humanitarian mission: "We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy."

Fox's unbending purpose in Afghanistan is absolutely right (although economic, social and political development are vital components underpinning the counter-insurgency campaign there). There are plenty of other peoples around the globe who would no doubt benefit from British intervention to rid them of human rights abuse and economic hardship, but whose regimes do not present any direct threat to our security and therefore do not warrant the sacrifice - so far - of 300 British military lives.

But success in Afghanistan should also save the people there from the brutal oppression of the Taliban. I was commander of British forces back in 2003. My interpreter, Hamid, an elderly and learned citizen of Kabul, had endured years under the Taliban heel, and would visibly flinch whenever their name was so much as mentioned.

The miserable lives of the millions who live just over the border in north-west Pakistan give us a glimpse of the horrors that would confront the people of Afghanistan if the extremists were allowed to return.

Between 2004 and last year the Pakistani Taliban, originally a separate entity from their Afghan cousins, took over, progressively expanding their iron grip on this 250-mile stretch of border. They killed, attacked, tortured and intimidated tribal elders, government officials, soldiers, rival politicians, doctors, teachers, aid workers and human rights activists. Banning long-established local government, they blew up meetings of elders using suicide attacks and fire-bombings, and established Taliban tribunals to administer the unilaterally imposed sharia law.

The tribunals order public executions - by shooting or beheading - for offences such as theft. People are beaten and their heads are shaved for listening to music, watching television, trimming beards or failing to pray at the mosque five times a day. Barber shops, hospitals, mosques and government buildings have been destroyed.

The Taliban violently compel women to stay at home if they are not fully veiled and insist they be accompanied by a male relative if they go outside. Women suspected of prostitution are killed. Females may not be photographed, denying them the ability to obtain official identity cards or register for benefits and relief services, such as food, shelter or medical treatment, and effectively removing them from government records.

The Taliban do not permit girls to go to school, and have blown up or torched hundreds of schools, depriving tens of thousands of boys and girls of any education.

All of these activities continue today, and have been extensively documented in a recent report by Amnesty International.

Some people dispute Fox's assertions about the threat to our country's security that would follow if we left Afghanistan before we achieved our objectives. They argue that a Taliban resurgent in Afghanistan would neither pose a threat to us nor be foolish enough again to harbour al-Qaida terrorists intent on attacking the west.

Again, the Pakistani Taliban's activities are instructive. Despite strikes against them by the government of Pakistan and US forces, since 2005 the Taliban in north-west Pakistan have co-ordinated activities with the Afghan Taliban, launching cross-border operations against Nato and Afghan forces. They give refuge and support to the Haqqani terrorist network and to Mullah Omar, chief of the Afghan Taliban.

Osama bin Laden and his senior leaders, as well as al-Qaida terrorists and affiliated groups, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, live and operate in these areas. Attacks against the west have been planned and training of international terrorists is conducted under Taliban dispensation. Sound familiar?

Of course, it does. And should we again permit the Taliban to control Afghanistan, there can be no doubt that they too would allow international terrorist training and planning to resume - exactly as before. Just as chillingly, they would return the Pakistani Taliban's favours, providing support and shelter for them and for al-Qaida and associated extremists intent on bringing down the government of Pakistan and taking control of a nuclear-armed state.

With much more hard fighting before the job is done, we have not seen the last British soldier killed in Afghanistan.

The government must give our troops every shred of material support necessary to achieve their objectives and to minimise further casualties. But our brave fighting men and women also need our wholehearted moral support as they continue to put their lives on the line to prevent these nightmare scenarios becoming reality. It is not good enough to support them though. We must also support the vital cause they are fighting for.

Colonel Richard Kemp, of the Royal Anglian Regiment, was commander of British forces in Afghanistan in 2003. His book, Attack State Red, is an account of the 2007 campaign by the Royal Anglian Regiment in Afghanistan.