British troops in Afghanistan won't have policing role, foreign minister says

LONDON – British troops will not take on a policing role in Afghanistan, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Friday.

About 100 British troops landed at Bagram airport north of Kabul on Thursday to prepare the facility for humanitarian tasks, the Ministry of Defense said.

"As troops go in – and I suspect a number troops from different countries will go in over a period but that depends on agreements and understandings with those in civil administration – they will have specific tasks," Straw said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"The task, for example, of the 100 or so British troops who arrived yesterday is to secure the airport and make it safe for humanitarian and diplomatic missions amongst many other things."

Intervention in any civil war that might follow the collapse of the Taliban regime "is not on the agenda," Straw said.

"Our forces are there for the purposes set out when this coalition for military action was undertaken – and that is to bring Osama bin Laden and his senior associates to justice, or justice to him, to break up the al-Qaida network and then to ensure the end of the Taliban regime who were support that network. So we are not there in a policing role," he said.

President Bush launched airstrikes against Afghanistan on Oct. 7 after the Taliban refused to surrender bin Laden, sought in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

U.S. officials are considering several new strategies in the wake of the Taliban's retreat from urban areas, including the number and kind of U.S. forces needed at Afghan air bases such as Bagram.

APNP-11-16-01 0713CST