British PM: Afghan war vital to stopping al-Qaida

Brown said his country's domestic security depended on the success of its Afghan mission, saying that three quarters of the major terrorist plots uncovered in Britain were traceable to the region.

“I want to make it clear that it is only by standing up to the terrorist threat at its source that we can properly defend our shores,” Brown told an audience at London's 15th century Guildhall.

Britons' patience with the progress of the war in Afghanistan has been shaken by the steady increase in casualties — nearly 100 this year alone. And Brown has been buffeted by charges leveled by soldiers' families, lawmakers and even members of his own government that British troops have been sent to the conflict without proper equipment, including body armor and helicopters.

His speech, an attempt to rally public opinion and reassure voters that progress was being made in Afghanistan, came the same day as hundreds of mourners thronged the streets of Wootton Bassett, a small town west of the capital, to honor two British soldiers whose remains were flown back from the country.

The death of another of their comrades — slain in an explosion on Sunday — was announced a couple of hours before Brown took to the podium.

Brown insisted Monday that their sacrifice had resulted in real gains.

“I can report tonight that methodically and patiently, we are disrupting and disabling the leadership of al-Qaida,” he said.

He said seven of the top dozen al-Qaida leaders had been killed since Jan. 2008, damaging the group's morale. He added that British intelligence services believed their country now had the chance “to inflict significant and long-lasting damage” to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

But while Brown claimed that more had been done this year to dismantle al-Qaida than in any other year since the military invasion in 2001, Taliban insurgents have also grown bolder, increasingly challenging the weak central government led by President Hamid Karzai.

Karzai's position has been undercut by an election victory tainted by charges of widespread fraud.

European leaders, including Brown, are waiting for President Barack Obama to set U.S. policy, which may include an escalation in troop strength, as sought by top generals. Brown has indicated a willingness to follow suit, but he was at pains Monday to reassure his audience that Britain and its allies hoped to leave once they were satisfied that Afghanistan could face the insurgents on its own.

“This coalition does not intend to become an occupying army,” he said.

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