KABUL, Afghanistan - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday that his country could send extra troops to Afghanistan under a U.S.-led military surge aimed at stemming terrorism and supporting upcoming Afghan elections.
Brown visited the front line in volatile Helmand province only a day after four British troops were killed in the same region -- one in a roadside bomb and three when a teenage suicide bomber with a bomb hidden in a wheelbarrow blew himself up.
"There is a chain of terror that comes from the Pakistani and Afghan mountains right across Europe and can end up very easily on the streets of Britain," Brown said after he left Camp Bastion in Helmand and travelled to Kabul to see Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "British people are safer today because we have our troops working with the Afghan people to act against terror."
He said that Britain and other NATO allies should support proposals by U.S. president-elect Barack Obama to boost troops numbers but that the burden had to be shared equally.
Brown is scheduled to brief legislators in London on Monday over future plans in Afghanistan and indicated he could authorize the deployment of extra troops. "I have been taking stock, I have been talking to our commanders on the ground," he said, adding that he would make no announcement before addressing the House of Commons.
"It is right that the Americans propose to bring more troops into Afghanistan, but it is also right that the burden-sharing means that others have to do more," Brown said.
Britain has some 8,200 troops in Afghanistan, most of whom are based in Helmand.
