UK sees small Afghan drawdown

CAMP BASTION, Afghanistan (Reuters) Afghan soldiers canada goose coats on sale and police are improving enough to allow some British troops to return home, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Monday, but the withdrawal will be quite small and not Canada Goose Online affect the core force over uk canada goose the next year.

Highlighting the cheap canada goose uk fragility of security gains in the near decade long conflict, his trip to the town canada goose clearance sale of Lashkar Gah in Canada Goose sale Helmand province had to be canceled so that resources could be concentrated on finding Canada Goose Outlet a missing British soldier, Canada Goose Jackets who was later found dead.

campaign is moving into a new phase. You do see an increasingly confident Afghan national army and Afghan police able to carry Canada Goose online out more operations Canada Goose Parka on their own, he told reporters at Camp Bastion in southern Helmand.

are looking at a proper transition canada goose uk black friday taking place, including the town jacketstock of Lashkar canadian goose jacket Gah itself and, as that happens, there will be opportunities to bring some British soldiers home, but we talking relatively small numbers, he said.

The withdrawal would not affect Britain core force for the next fighting season which runs from spring through early autumn in Afghanistan Cameron added.

He was speaking during an unannounced trip to Helmand, one of Afghanistan most violent regions, where canada goose store most of canada goose black friday sale Britain 9,500 troops are based.

Reporters traveling with Cameron were given no opportunity to speak to senior Afghan military officials to ask them about their readiness to assume a bigger security role.

Cameron canada goose coats said he had canceled his trip to Lashkar Gah, where British and canada goose uk outlet other NATO led troops expect to start handing over to Afghan forces on July 20, to allow efforts to be concentrated on the requirement of finding the missing soldier.

The soldier was cheap Canada Goose later uk canada goose outlet found dead with gunshot wounds, Britain defense ministry said.

A spokesman buy canada goose jacket for the Taliban told Reuters the militant group had captured the soldier Sunday and had executed him in the Babaji area of southern Helmand.

At least canada goose outlet 374 British troops have been killed in Afghanistan.

Cameron is expected to detail the troop withdrawal in parliament Wednesday. Newspaper reports say he will announce a drawdown of between 500 and 800 troops by 2013. troops this year and 23,000 by September 2012.

Violence has spread across even once peaceful parts of the canada goose factory sale country, 2010 was the deadliest year on record for foreign troops and Afghan civilians, and militants continue to operate from safe havens in neighboring Pakistan. military chiefs have voiced their discomfort over the speed of the withdrawal.

Britain, which has the second largest contingent of foreign troops in Afghanistan after the United States, aims to withdraw all its combat troops by the canada goose end of 2014.

Cameron said the transition Canada Goose Coats On Sale would be gradual and but emphasized that 2015 was a deadline that British and Afghan forces were on track to meet.

think the British public and the British military. deserves to have some certainty about this, he canada goose clearance said.

He also said the Western alliance initial hopes for governance and development in Afghanistan might have been too high.

think that we possibly set expectations at an unrealistic level and tried to do too many things, he said, adding that the goal now was to ensure Afghanistan could maintain its own security and stop it being a base for militant training camps.

Qualifying Cameron upbeat comments, Chief of the Defense Staff General David Richards, traveling with Cameron, said:

will continue to be buy canada goose jacket cheap incidents. The trick isn that we have completely finished off the insurgency but (that), by the time we transition out finally, the canada goose uk shop Afghan national security forces can handle it.