British foreign secretary defends Afghan policy

LONDON, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Thursday reiterated the reasons Britain, together with 41 other countries, are in Afghanistan.

In an interview with Sky News, Milibrand highlighted the need to combat international terrorism and to ensure that the Afghan government and people are eventually in position to govern and defend their own country.

"The stakes are very high because a victory for global jihad in Afghanistan would have major ramifications not just for that, that country, not just for its neighbor Pakistan, but also for the rest of the world, because I repeat Afghanistan and the badlands of the Afghan-Pakistan border are the incubator of choice for international terrorism," he said.

Miliband said that after eight years of sacrifice and struggle there is no question that the enemy have changed its methods and the insurgency now uses terrorist tactics that they hadn't before.

"And the truth is that the threat remains real," Milibrand said, "The truth is that the battle is hard. The truth is that we needed to adapt our own tactics because our enemy has changed its tactics. And the truth is that we need responsibility from the Afghan government as well as from the international community."

The greatest resource Britian and the other countries has, Milibrand said, is that the vast majority of Afghans don't want their country to be a home to al-Qaida under the cover of Taliban misrule.

He said that is something that needs to be harnessed over the months ahead.

Britain has announced plans to increase the number of British troops in Afghanistan to about 9,500.

Miliband said U.S. President Barack Obama, with allies like Britain is taking time to go through the details, adding "we're in the middle of a war and it would be quite wrong for haste to enter into this."

In addition, he said there's a point in all conflicts where people rightly ask hard questions because of the scale of the loss, because of concerns about the nature of the enemy.

"But it's at precisely that time when we need to be as clear as possible about the plan that is being implemented, about the metrics of progress and about the way in which success will be achieved," he said.

About 232 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. Many critics have criticized the lack of equipment for troops and several military commanders have resigned, questioning the mission's overall strategy.