AFGHANISTAN:BRITISH PRIME minister Gordon Brown made a surprise visit to Afghanistan yesterday amid a surge in attacks by Taliban forces.
The assaults have made this week one of the bloodiest for Nato since it began its campaign in the country in 2003.
Brown flew to Kabul after visiting British troops at Camp Bastion in Helmand province, where he said soldiers were preventing terrorism from hitting Britain, and likened them to Olympic heroes.
The visit, the prime minister's second since he took office, came days after 10 French troops were killed in fierce fighting with the Taliban near Kabul. Three Polish troops were also killed this week, along with a British soldier.
Moreover, it was confirmed a further three Canadian soldiers had been killed by a roadside bomb in Zhari district, west of the southern city of Kandahar.
Mr Brown held a meeting with Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and announced Britain would be giving a further £64 million (€81 million) in development assistance to the country.
"We are utterly resolute in our determination to support this new democracy of Afghanistan," he said. "We won't relax our efforts to support and reconstruct Afghanistan because we understand that what happens in Afghanistan affects the rest of the world."
The prime minister said he believed coalition forces were making "substantial advances" against the Taliban