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Afghanistan

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence (Bob Ainsworth) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement. My right honourable friend the Member for Barrow and Furness announced in his Statement to the House on 29 April 2009, that Headquarters, 6 (UK) Division would command the International Security Assistance Force’s Regional Command (South) from November 2009 to November 2010 (Official Report, col. 46WS). The next routine roulement of UK forces in Afghanistan will take place in October 2009. The force package that we plan to deploy will see the current lead brigade, 19 Light Brigade, replaced by 11 Light Brigade which will be committed to Afghanistan until April 2010. The forces deploying include:

Volunteer and regular members of the Reserve Forces will continue to deploy to Afghanistan as part of our integrated force package, and we expect to issue around 710 call-out notices to fill some 650 posts. On completion of their mobilisation procedures, the reservists will undertake a period of training and, where applicable, integration with their respective receiving units. The majority will serve on operations for six or so months. As part of this commitment, we expect up to 21 members of the sponsored reserves to be in theatre at any one time. I shall make a further Statement on the units we expect to commit under 11 Light Brigade’s planned replacement formation, 4 Mechanised Brigade, nearer the time of their deployment.