Four British soldiers die for the sake of 150 votes

Just 150 Afghan voters dared to go to the ballot box in the area of Helmand province where British soldiers sacrificed their lives to secure a safe election day, it was revealed yesterday.

The figures were released as the British Ambassador to Kabul admitted that troops could be engaged in combat in Afghanistan for five more years.

The Electoral Commission in Kabul said that early estimates of voting in the former Taleban stronghold of Babaji, north of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, indicated that few exercised their right to vote last Thursday. Several thousand people could have voted.

Four of the ten troops who died in Operation Panther’s Claw, the five-week offensive to drive the Taleban out of central Helmand before the presidential election, were killed in or around Babaji.

<SNIP>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6811537.ece