Tory MP splits with Cameron and demands Taliban talks after four soldiers killed

A Tory MP and former soldier, Adam Holloway, has broken ranks with the Conservative leadership by calling for the Government to talk to the Taliban following the deaths of four more British soldiers including the first woman to be killed on active service in Afghanistan.

It is understood that they were SAS reservists. Reports are sketchy but they are reported to have been in a lightly-armoured 'Snatch' Land Rover, hoping to keep a low profile in Helmand - even though these vehicles have been criticised for offering too little protection from roadside bombs. Normally, the Army has been using special vehicles that can withstand blasts, after evidence that the Taliban were being supplied with armour-piercing devices, possibly from Iran and other sponsors of terrror.

Holloway was speaking on BBC radio just minutes after his party leader David Cameron had backed Gordon Brown to the hilt in Prime Minister's Questions over the need to keep troops in Afghanistan.

Holloway frankly knows more than either Cameron or Brown about the subject. He went to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst before being commissioned into the Grenadier Guards. After that he became an ITN journalist, working in Bosnia among other hot-spots.

"We have achieved our first objective - al-Qaeda have no safe haven in Afghanistan. The second objective is to deal with the Taliban and I don't think, as we are currently configured, we are going to do that.

"We have to be realistic... I am not saying disengage from the terrorist... in specific local areas we need to make deals with local tribesmen. And who are the Taliban? They are the normal local tribesmen."

When Brown went to Afghanistan last December on a pre-Christmas fact-finding mission - or photo op, depending on your view) - it was reported that Brown's team had privately said they needed to talk to the Taliban.

Brown came back full of denials. He said in the Commons he would not negotiate in Downing Street with the Taliban. But he was making a political point, and misleading the British people at the same time. No one was claiming he was going to negotiate; that would have to be done by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, who seems to have the West in the palm of his hand.

The problem comes with Karzai - he doesn't want to cede any power to the Taliban. And while he prevaricates, Labour MPs fear that the number of fatalities among British soldiers will go on rising. The armed forces on the ground know that they can only roll back the Taliban until a political settlement is thrashed out on the ground; they can't repel them for ever while there is support for them in neighbouring areas, such as the frontier region with Pakistan.

It is understood that the three male soldiers who were killed were protecting Afghan security forces while being trained. They are believed to be members of the 23rd Special Air Service Regiment, which is one of two Territorial Army SAS units.

Cameron and Brown will be under pressure to admit that Holloway is right. It is time to talk to the Taliban. They owe it to those who have been killed.

THE MOLE: AFGHANISTAN

FIRST POSTED JUNE 18, 2008