New Zealand special forces to stay in Afghanistan for another year

Feb 1, 2011, 5:16 GMT

Wellington - New Zealand will keep a contingent of troops in Afghanistan for another 12 months from April, but will halve the number to about 35, Prime Minister John Key announced Tuesday.

He said the Special Air Services (SAS) troops would stay to complete the task of bringing the Afghan crisis response unit based in the capital Kabul up to 'a high operational standard.'

The conservative National Party-led government sent about 70 SAS members to Afghanistan in August 2009 in response to US President Barack Obama's call for increased allied troops.

There had been speculation that Key's government would not replace the troops in April, when the current unit is scheduled to return home. The SAS would be required for security duties later this year when a number of world leaders are expected for the Rugby World Cup tournament.

The previous Labour government, which was ousted in November 2008, sent SAS troops to Afghanistan three times but pulled out the last force in 2005.

Labour leader Phil Goff attacked the government's decision made at Tuesday's cabinet meeting.

'It's time to bring the SAS home,' he said. 'The SAS are great soldiers, but we should not be putting them at risk for a deeply corrupt government that has failed to win the support of its own people.

'The SAS are being placed in situations where innocent lives can inadvertently be lost on behalf of a regime that has not won the hearts and minds of its people and which will blame outsiders when things go wrong.'

Key said no decision had been made on the future of a 140-strong New Zealand army provincial reconstruction team based in Bamiyan, about 200 kilometres north-west of Kabul, since September 2003.

The team suffered New Zealand's only fatal casualty in August with an officer dying when a bomb was detonated during a routine patrol.

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