Minister says government must keep troops in Afghanistan

By Adrian Croft

LONDON (Reuters) - Terrorists in Afghanistan pose a direct threat to security and it is even more important now than in 2001 that British troops be there to confront them, Defence Secretary John Hutton said on Tuesday.

In his first major speech since being appointed last month, Hutton said that pulling out the 8,000 British troops fighting in Afghanistan would deal "a profoundly dangerous blow" to British interests.

"For me, the national security arguments that took us to Afghanistan are stronger today than in 2001," Hutton said. "If walking away then would have damaged those interests, scuttling away now would deal them a profoundly dangerous blow."

Britain took part in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban government because Afghanistan was a base from which al Qaeda leaders were directing terrorist operations, "operations that would ... have been aimed at us here in the UK," he said.

"In my view our engagement is as much a security priority for the UK today as the world wars or the Cold War of the last century," he told the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based thinktank.

Troops in the southern province of Helmand have been engaged in tough fighting against resurgent Taliban guerrillas. Some 122 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due to visit Britain later this week, and Hutton said it was right for the Afghan government to talk to those who "aspire to lay down their arms and enter the political process."

But reconciliation would happen only when the Afghan government and the NATO-led force were seen to be winning politically and militarily, and prepared to stay for the long haul, said Hutton, who visited Afghanistan and Iraq last month.