Brigadier Lane to be replaced

Brigadier Roger Lane is to be replaced at the end of next month by Brigadier Jim Dutton, after the 45 Commando battle group comes home from Afghanistan.

The timing of the replacement of Brigadier Lane as 3 Commando Brigade Commander, less than 24 hours after his ringing endorsement by Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, seems to belong more to the world of football than the military.

He will have spent barely more than a year in command and is to move to an unspecified job in the Ministry of Defence - which means he is unlikely to command troops in the field again.

The Royal Marines mission has been dogged by bad luck from the first and the bad luck has been compounded by a high degree of hype.

The decision to send in the Royal Marines was taken at the beginning of March - though it was never explained entirely why the United States wanted them in such a hurry and what they were expected to do. Mr Hoon emphasised that this was a"combat mission" with a "risk of casualties".

The Marines took six weeks to fully deploy, though in the meantime they did undertake "Operation Ptarmigan"-which was little more than a training exercise for the troops who had already arrived. Since then Operation Snipe and Operation Condor followed and, despite much prepublicity, the Marines have had no serious contact with the enemy.

Sources in the US suggest that the Royal Marines were called for suddenly because of the failure of the Americans' Operation Anaconda, in which US forces allowed al Qaeda and Taliban forces, possibly in their hundreds, to slip across the border into Pakistan.

Since then the forces have been chasing shadows for the most part, with occasional skirmishes with wandering groups of three or four al Qaeda and bands of Taliban, of which there must be up to 20,000 waiting to do battle again after the the summer ends.

Part of the problem for Brigadier Lane is that he is merely an adviser to the American commander of the forces based at Bagram airfield. He does not have a full British brigade at his disposal and 45 Commando has its own commander directly in charge of the 1,700 troops. Brigadier Lane has no direct British superior in the Afghan theatre and responds to the Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood.

Brigadier Lane is regarded by his peers as a serious professional officer. He is a no-nonsense commander with plenty of experience. Last year he completed the Higher Command Staff Course which prepares future generals and admirals.

His replacement, or "short tour" as it is known in the services, is as a result of too little action and too much spin, much of it beyond his control.

Brigadier Lane has served in a number of theatres with the Royal Marines, particularly in Northern Ireland where he commanded one of the regular commandos - the Royal Marine version of a battalion.

He is also known to have worked with special forces connected to the Royal Marines Special Boat Service. He is not known to have served in the Falklands campaign, when 45 Commando won battle honours at Two Sisters in the final attacks round Stanley.

He is a married man with children and is regarded as a very sociable colleague. His men are devoted to him as an operational commander, and already some have spoken out in his support. "I have worked for a number of brigade commanders," said one. "I have not met one with his sort of acuity, passion for his men and passion for the job. I would follow him into battle any day of the week."

Such a sudden announcement of the termination of the appointment of an operational commander at this level is highly unusual. It happened once in Northern Ireland when the commander of 3 Infantry Brigade Brigadier Tom Longland was removed after incidents involving the Parachute Regiment at Coalisland.

Others have disappeared quite suddenly after command, such as the Commander of 5 Brigade, Tony Wilson, a few months after the Falklands campaign.

The most spectacular "short touring" came at the head of NATO Forces in Europe when the Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark of the US was told he was not to continue, only a few days after his forces had gone into Kosovo in 1999.