4million could f lee to Europe if UK pulls out of Afghanistan warns minister
‘Not right to leave before job is done’
SIR Michael Fallon has criticised European countries for blaming austerity for not hitting Nato military spending targets.
The Defence Secretary said the UK had also faced austerity but was still hitting the Nato target of 2 per cent of spending of national income on defence.
His comments in Munich came after US defence secretary General Jim Mattis warned last week that countries must spend more on defence or risk losing support from Washington.
Sir Michael also criticised European governments for ‘fretting’ more about the new US President than Russia.
He said: ‘In my view there ought to be far more worrying about [Vladimir] Putin.’
AS many as four million men from Afghanistan could travel to Britain and other European nations along migrant routes if the West abandons the warravaged country, the Defence Secretary has warned.
Sir Michael Fallon admitted the UK and Nato cannot pull troops out of Afghanistan because the terrorist groups that existed there when soldiers deployed in 2001 remain and ‘still pose a threat’.
As the Ministry of Defence considers sending more troops to the country, Sir Michael warned that if Afghanistan collapses, Europe ‘will feel the consequences, very directly’.
The Cabinet minister also raised the prospect of UK servicemen remaining in the country for years, declaring that ‘we should stay until the job is done’.
His stark comments mark a dramatic shift from those of former prime minister David Cameron, who in 2013 declared that the mission in Afghanistan was accomplished.
They could be viewed as Sir Michael paving the way for the Government to step up its role in the region again.
Just over a week ago, Armed Forces minister Mike Penning revealed that the Government is considering sending more UK troops back to the country.
Speaking alongside other defence ministers at the Munich Security Conference, Sir Michael said: ‘If it was right to go in, it has to be not right to leave before the job is done as well as we can do it.’
He admitted Afghan forces were struggling to defeat the Taliban without Western soldiers, saying: ‘We are asking the government of Afghanistan and their military to deal with the same situation we had ten times as many troops to deal with.’
UK ground troops pulled out of the country at the end of 2014 and at the time Sir Michael said no combat soldiers would be deployed there again ‘under any circumstances’.
There are, however, 500 UK training troops and security personnel providing assistance in the country’s capital, Kabul.
MoD officials are discussing sending more. Sources said last night this referred to trainers and that there were no plans to send combat troops. Mr Pen- ning told an inquiry earlier this month: ‘We have no plans to draw down – actually, there is a possibility that we might uplift because of what we are being asked to do.’ He then quipped that he was ‘probably going to get shot’ for admitting more troops could be sent.
Sir Michael told diplomats and military figures at the weekend that he believed the UK and Nato had to keep supporting the country for three reasons. ‘First, there are transnational terrorist groups in Afghanistan that wish us harm at home and here in our democracies,’ he said. ‘That is why we went in and those transnational terrorist groups are still there and they still pose a threat.’
Second, he added: ‘ If this country collapses, we here will feel the consequences, very directly. There could be three to four million young Afghan men sent out by their villages to migrate westwards, and they are heading here.
‘They are heading to Germany or Britain and that could be the consequence if this entire country collapses.’
Third, he said: ‘There are Nato values here, this is a democracy that we helped to establish. That government has asked for our help and my view is we should stay with it as long as we can until that job is done.’