US To Replace British in Deadly District

LONDON -- British troops will withdraw from a volatile district in southern Afghanistan where they have sustained nearly 100 deaths, turning over responsibility to U.S. forces by the end of the year, an official said.

The Sangin valley in Helmand province has been one of the deadliest for British forces, accounting for 99 of the 312 soldiers who have died in Afghanistan since 2001.

Defense Secretary Liam Fox planned to make a statement Wednesday to the House of Commons on changes in the deployment of British troops, who are likely to reinforce their positions in central Helmand province.

A government official, who requested anonymity to discuss the statement in advance, said U.S. troops are expected to replace British forces in Sangin starting around November. No other details were available.

Britain has about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, most based in Helmand.

Fox has previously discounted a suggestion that British troops could be switched to the neighboring Kandahar province when Canada withdraws its force next year.

The ex-head of Britain's army Richard Dannatt, now an adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron, said soldiers in Sangin and other areas of Helmand were attracting enemy attacks.

"The intention when we went into southern Afghanistan was to try to get the country on its feet economically. We all know it didn't turn out that way," he told BBC radio.

"We spread our small resources thinly and that inevitably made the small number of British soldiers like flies in a honey pot and we got into this cycle of fighting," he said.

Dannatt said it was likely that Britain would eventually sustain more than 400 fatalities in Afghanistan.

"I don't want to see the figures get to 400 but realistically they probably will," he said.