Afghanistan mission accomplished says David Cameron

UK troops can come home from Afghanistan
knowing it was mission accomplished, David
Cameron has said as he visited the country.
The prime minister met forces stationed at
Camp Bastion in Helmand, a year before the last
British combat forces are due to leave the
country.
Mr Cameron, who ate breakfast with troops,
said a "basic level of security" had been
achieved.
They could "come home with their heads held
high", he added.
Senior military figures are braced for increased
activity as more troops pull out and expect
elections being staged next year to be a
particular focus for insurgent groups.
Asked by reporters if personnel were coming
home with the message "mission accomplished",
the prime minister, accompanied by former
England footballer Michael Owen, said: "Yes, I
think they do."
He added: "To me, the absolute driving part of
the mission is a basic level of security so it
doesn't become a haven for terror. That is the
mission, that was the mission and I think we
will have accomplished that mission and so our
troops can be very proud of what they have
done."
Mr Cameron's comments come two months
after Afghan president Hamid Karzai said there
was only "partial" security in the country and
foreign troops should have done more to target
safe havens in Pakistan.
They also echo former US President George W.
Bush's May 2003 declaration that the US role in
Iraq was "mission accomplished", only to see a
big increase in sectarian violence which lasted a
decade.
Al-Qaeda threat
Asked whether Mr Cameron's own comments
risked seeming premature, a No 10 spokesman
said he had not used the words "mission
accomplished" himself but had responded to a
question from a journalist accompanying him.
He had said the situation in Afghanistan was not
perfect, but the threats from terrorists had
decreased and "that's because of the
achievements of our armed forces".
As to whether the mission had been
accomplished, BBC security correspondent Frank
Gardner said the presence of UK and other
foreign troops in Afghanistan since 2001 had
stopped al-Qaeda cells from operating in the
country.
However he said there were already signs that
as US forces withdraw from some of the more
remote provinces in the north-east, al-Qaeda
were filtering back in, so in terms of
international terror (as opposed to insurgency
within the country which remains high), his
verdict was "12 years successful, future
uncertain".
Mr Cameron's brief visit was what has become a
traditional pre-Christmas prime ministerial trip.
He took a helicopter to a forward operating
base, Sterga 2, in the Nahr-e Saraj part of
Helmand, where he had lunch with a small
group of soldiers.
Around 5,200 British troops are now based in
Afghanistan, down from 9,000 at the start of
the year. There have been 446 British deaths
since operations began in 2001.
Speaking afterwards to journalists Mr Cameron
said: "The timetable for the withdrawal of
British troops is a plan that we will stick to. I
said, back in 2010, that after the end of 2014
there would not be British troops in a combat
role and we will stick to that.