General: West will never defeat al-Qaida

THE head of Britain’s Armed Forces, has warned that the West will never be able to defeat al-Qaida and Islamic militants.

As his country prepared for Remembrance Day ceremonies yesterday, General David Richards said the national security of Britain is still at stake, but the threat can be contained to allow Britons to lead secure lives.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Gen Richards, 58, said: “Make no mistake, the global threat from al-Qaida and its terrorist affiliates is an enduring one and one which, if we let it, will rear its head in states, particularly those that are unstable.

“The national security of the UK and our allies is, in my judgment, at stake.”

He said: “In conventional war, defeat and victory is very clearcut and is symbolised by troops marching into another nation’s capital. First of all you have to ask: ‘do we need to defeat it (Islamist militancy) in the sense of a clear cut victory?’ I would argue that it is unnecessary and would never be achieved. But we can contain it to the point that our lives and our children’s lives are led securely? I think we can.”

The general said of the men and women fighting in Afghanistan: “I think there are direct parallels to be made with the bravery of those who risked, and who gave, their lives in the fight against fascism in the Second World War.”

He also said the British military and the Government had been “guilty of not fully understanding what was at stake” in Afghanistan and admitted the Afghan people were beginning to “tire” of NATO’S inability to deliver on its promises, but he insisted the sacrifice being made by British troops in Afghanistan, where 343 soldiers have been killed since 2001, “has been worth it”.

Meanwhile, five NATO- soldiers in Afghanistan were killed yesterday, including three in a clash with insurgents in the east, the coalition said, one of the worst daily tolls in a month. Earlier the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said two of its soldiers had been killed in separate explosions in the south.

The five casualties were the worst suffered by ISAF since October 14, when eight people were killed in five separate incidents. Another six were killed the previous day.

Violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were overthrown by US-backed Afghan forces nine years ago, with civilian and military casualties at record levels despite the presence of about 150,000 foreign troops.

At least 642 ISAF troops, about 440 of them American, have been killed in Afghanistan so far in 2010, by far the deadliest year of the war.