Soldiers may serve one-year tours in Afghanistan says military commander 01.08.11
4The Ministry of Defence says there are no current plans to lengthen tours to Afghanistan for some personnel - despite claims from a senior military figure that it might help with the handover. In an interview with The Independent, Brigadier Ed Davis, the commander of Task Force Helmand, says some soldiers could be posted on year-long tours to maintain continuity during the withdrawal period. He said most of those affected would be working in intelligence and the mentoring and advising of Afghan forces. Brigadier Davis, of 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines, said: "The constant churn of people with whom you have really strong relationships is hard, so I think you need to reduce that by having people in theatre for longer. "I suspect over time we'll see these changes and a larger percentage of people doing longer tours ... We are looking at nine to 12 months. "When you are mentoring, when you are not in charge, you are not leading, you're very much leading from behind. "I am talking about a number of groups, some of the specialists, the mentor teams, advisory mentor teams, and maybe some of the other functions we might be looking at extending like intelligence. "This is because the 'knowledge depth' is so great, it makes sense to have people here a bit longer." According to the interview, lengthened tours of duty could come in the lead up to the end of combat operations in Afghanistan in 2014. Brigadier Davis added: "The bulk of the structure and the six-month employment sample will carry on, I think certainly for the foreseeable future. The programme will go through until 2014, that's the intent at the moment." A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "The MOD is always examining how best to generate and sustain our armed forces, including by looking at the length of tours and the intervals between them. "However the vast majority of personnel serve six-month tours and there are no current plans to change this."