Brown warns Afghanistan to stamp out corruption

London:  Prime Minister Gordon Brown cautioned Afghanistan's government yesterday to take action against corruption, saying he would not risk more British lives there unless it reforms.

Brown said in a speech that success in Afghanistan is vital to Britain's security — but declared that if the Afghan government does not mend its ways it will forfeit the world's support.

"I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm's way for a government that does not stand up against corruption," he said.

The speech comes after the deaths of seven British soldiers in the past week, including five who were shot by an Afghan police officer they were training. Corruption-marred presidential elections and rising casualties have undermined British support for the war.

Mission attack

Increasing violence in the country is also threatening the UN mission there. On Thursday, the world body said it was temporarily relocating more than half of its international staff while it looks for safer accommodation, following an attack last week on a guesthouse that killed five staffers. Britain has promised to send 500 more troops to Afghanistan — though Brown said it was dependent upon progress in governance.

Brown said the government in Afghanistan had become a by-word for corruption, but noted that newly re-elected Afghan President Hamid Karzai had assured him that he would take decisive action against it.

Karzai has insisted that the government is redoubling its efforts to fight corruption, but his spokesman Humayon Hamidzada said that better cooperation between Afghan and international officials was needed to help tackle it. Brown linked military action there to safety on Britain's streets.

"We will not be deterred, dissuaded or diverted from taking whatever measures are necessary to protect our security," Brown said.

Britain currently has about 9,000 troops in the country, the majority in the restive southern Helmand province. The force is the second-largest foreign one in the country after the United States.

Brown said Karzai "needs a contract with the Afghan people — a contract against which Afghans, as well as the international community, can judge his success."

Brown added: "International support depends on the scale of his ambition and the degree of his achievement in five key areas: security, governance, reconciliation, economic development, and engagement with Afghanistan's neighbours.

"If the government fails to meet these five tests, it will have not only failed its own people, it will have forfeited its right to international support."

Shooting victim: Widow grapples with task of breaking news to son

The widow of one of the five British soldiers killed in Afghanistan today said she had no idea how she would explain his death to their young son. Kerry Telford, 33, widow of Sergeant Matthew Telford, 37, is left with their four-year-old son Harry, and Callum, his nine-year-old with another partner. She said: "I don't know what I'm going to say to [Harry]. I don't want to say that nasty men have killed daddy I want to be able to tell him that he's in heaven now and that he's gone to be with the angels.

"I don't think he's going to understand and he's going to need telling more than once. I'm going to get questions every day." Sergeant Telford left letters for his two sons to be opened in the event of his death. He told the boys he had gone to the war-torn country to help its people live normal lives because they had nobody else to defend them. He was one of five soldiers killed on Tuesday when a policeman, named as Gulbuddin, opened fire in their secure compound with a machinegun.

— Evening Standard