TA gets call-up in war on terrorism

The Government will today call up more than 100 Territorial Army specialists to help fight terrorism.

Some will be involved in security operations protecting key installations and buildings, and strengthening home defence against a possible attack. Many will gather and analyse intelligence on al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist suspects.

It is the first compulsory call-up of TA soldiers for 45 years, since the Suez crisis.

The TA will work in the field in Afghanistan and at the Ministry of Defence in London. Intelligence services have been short of language specialists for Afghanistan-related areas. Until recently the Army is believed to have had only two speakers of Pashto, the main language of Afghanistan.

Experts in Persian and Arabic are in high demand - Arabic is needed to interpret the mass of documentation allegedly left by al Qaeda trainers in Kabul and Kandahar.

The bulk of call-ups are believed to be from 3rd Military Intelligence Battalion. They will work in London on material from Afghanistan.

"We are now getting a flood of material," said a Whitehall source today. "It will be quite routine work for them, but absolutely vital all the same."

The call-up is expected to be temporary, with officers and soldiers serving six months to a year on full service pay. The Government is likely to pay their civilian employers compensation.

Individuals can now be called up for compulsory service under the Armed Forces Act of 1996. Previously the compulsory call for the TA could only happen in war or a major national emergency.

Some 500 TA reservists from all three services are now in Bosnia and Kosovo but are there as volunteers.

The increasing reliance on reserves reflects the shortage of skilled personnel in the services, particularly mechanical engineers, medics and signallers in the Army.

Most commanders see the current system as a stopgap measure and many want radical reform. Some have suggested Britain should have a full-time paid reserve, along the lines of the US National Guard. Home defence was largely left out of the Labour Government's 1998 Strategic Defence Review.