4,200 strong British force deployed

Britain is committing 4,200 men and women from all three armed services to operations in Afghanistan, Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram announced to the Commons today.

Most of the servicemen and women are to be reassigned from the major exercise in Oman which concludes this weekend. "This will enable us to keep a large and balanced force in the region," the Minister said, adding: "It will give us greater flexibility to widen operations in the region."

Most of the fighting element of the force, a company group of 200 from 40 Commando Royal Marines, will be based aboard the Landing Support Ship HMS Fearless, a veteran of the Falklands campaign. The commandos are to be "on call" to support American and British forces in Afghanistan.

Britain's task group will be led by the carrier HMS Illustrious. In addition, the destroyer HMS Southampton and frigate HMS Cornwall, plus a submarine and seven support ships, will make up the new force.

The main British naval contribution so far has been three submarines, HMS Superb, Triumph and Trafalgar, which have fired Tomahawk cruise missiles on two occasions in the Afghan campaign. Special forces - SAS and SBS - will be based aboard the Fearless and Illustrious.

These troops were not mentioned in the Minister's statement, as they are never discussed in open debate in parliament for security reasons. It is thought that at least two squadrons of 22 SAS Regiment are now involved - up to 200 men with their own support units of signallers and engineers.

The Royal Marines' Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre is also believed to be involved in the operation. There will be a full complement of assault helicopters - specially adapted Chinooks with high velocity machineguns and Sea King transports.

The remaining 400 men of 40 Commando involved in the Oman exercise are to return to their base at Taunton, where they will be on a state of "high readiness" to return to the Gulf for duties in Afghanistan.

The plan is to rotate the rest of the Commando with those already on board Fearless at regular intervals. The Minister also announced that an additional four aircraft, Nimrod reconnaissance planes and Hercules C130 transports, are to be added to the 10 reconnaissance and refuelling planes the UK has deployed already in Operation Veritas - Britain's part of the US Operation Enduring Freedom.

Following the announcement in the Commons, former Tory Armed Forces Minister Nicholas Soames accused the Government of merely "rebalancing" forces. He asked why only one third of 3 Commando are being sent to the region.

He said: "Most of us had hoped that [Mr Ingram] would be coming to the House to announce a significant stepping-up in the tempo of the operations and, maybe, the deployment of some forces on the ground."

Shadow defence secretary Bernard Jenkin welcomed the announcement but described it as "merely a decision to maintain a range of military options".

So far the Government has not assigned any strike aircraft to the operation - it is thought there is difficulty in getting permission from Gulf states to base planes like the Tornado GR4 bomber specifically for offensive operations in Afghanistan. Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon is currently in Oman

trying to work out a deal to station RAF aircraft there.

This morning, Al Jazeera television of Qatar, which has a direct line to the Taliban, said that US forces had established a forward air base in the west of Afghanistan between Kandahar and Herat.

If confirmed, it would mean allied special forces now have a base from which to mount their raids to search for the Taliban and al Qaeda leadership. The base is thought to be in the remote western desert - a hazard in itself as the dust it produces could seriously damage helicopter engines and the turbo-props of the Hercules and Spectre gunships.

In Pakistan the Afghan Islamic Press, a pro-Taliban news agency, reported that thousands of tribesmen had blocked the Karakorum highway - the main road artery from Pakistan to China in protest against Pakistan's support for the US.

Pakistan government officials confirmed the demonstrations had cut off the route and one official said: "They are just making their views felt."

Meanwhile, the final death toll of Britons in the 11 September terrorist attacks could be as low as 80, Downing Street said today.

The figure contrasts sharply with the estimate by senior ministers in the days following the tragedy that the number of British fatalities would be in the "middle hundreds". Today's figure follows reports from the US which claim that the overall number of deaths in the attacks is likely to be fewer than 4,000.

Downing Street blamed the confusion on the huge logistical problem of working out who had been working at the World Trade Center at the time and the scale of the devastation which has hampered the search for bodies.