Tours Of Duty 'Could Double To A Year'

The length of tours for some British soldiers serving in Afghanistan could be extended from six months to a year, according to a top commander.

Brigadier Ed Davis has told The Independent newspaper troops may need to be deployed for longer because of the continuing Taliban threat in the country.

He said a large proportion of those affected would be specialist troops involved in intelligence and the mentoring and advising of Afghan forces.

Soldiers on the front line are not expected to be affected.

Brigadier Davis, of 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines, said: "The constant churn of people with whom you have really strong relationships is hard, so I think you need to reduce that by having people in theatre for longer.

"I suspect over time we'll see these changes and a larger percentage of people doing longer tours ... We are looking at nine to 12 months.

"When you are mentoring, when you are not in charge, you are not leading, you're very much leading from behind.

"I am talking about a number of groups, some of the specialists, the mentor teams, advisory mentor teams, and maybe some of the other functions we might be looking at extending like intelligence.

"This is because the 'knowledge depth' is so great, it makes sense to have people here a bit longer."

British forces are due to end combat operations in Afghanistan in 2014.

In a statement the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said: "The MOD is always examining how best to generate and sustain our Armed Forces, including by looking at the length of tours...however the vast majority of personnel serve six month tours and there are no current plans to change this."