LONDON, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Britain announced Friday it would make 4,200 of its troops available for the allied war on terrorism in Afghanistan.
Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said the troops would form part of a large force of flexible size on standby in the region and would be drawn from a major military exercise recently conducted by British military units in the Gulf state of Oman.
A Ministry of Defense spokesman told United Press International the announcement did not imply immediate deployment of British troops in the Afghan war zone but made clear that Britain would have troops in the area ready to take on combat duties.
More than 22,000 British troops have been taking part in a military exercise in Oman that was scheduled before the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States. The spokesman said Britain was prepared to keep 4,200 troops from the exercise on standby in the region.
Over 17,000 troops from the exercise are due to return to Britain in the coming days, he said.
Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram earlier said 200 Royal Marines would be made "immediately available" to the US-led Afghan military campaign while Britain built up its standby military presence in the region.
The 200 troops will form part of a larger but flexible force that will be supported by a substantial amount of hardware and military vessels, Ingram said.
The British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, a submarine armed with cruise missiles, the destroyer HMS Southampton and the frigate HMS Cornwall will remain in the region, along with seven Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships and four support aircraft, including Nimrod maritime patrol and Hercules transport planes.
Although the bulk of the force involved in Oman exercises is returning home, defense officials said at least 400 other troops from the elite 40 Commando would be on standby in Britain when they returned to their base in Taunton, in western England. The 40 Commando, part of the Royal Marines' 3,500-strong commando brigade, is specially trained for winter warfare.
Ingram said Britain's troop commitment was a "concrete demonstration of our resolve to see the campaign against international terrorism through to the end."
Chief of Defense Staff Admiral Sir Michael Boyce told reporters the marines could be used to mount "precise surgical raids" against targets such as Taliban control-and-command centers or ammunition dumps.
"There may be times when we spend a very short time on Afghan soil and there may be a time when we spend days," he told a news conference.
If the U.S.-led operation expanded further, he said, Britain would bring "much, much larger forces" into the campaign.
Prime Minister Tony Blair in a message to the armed forces radio said the British role in the anti-terror campaign was a huge responsibility but a necessary one. "This is a battle that we have to undertake for the defense of civilized values everywhere and for the free world," he said.
He said, "It is only in circumstances where I believe it is absolutely essential that we commit British forces," calling the current campaign "a fight worth undertaking because of what is at stake in the world."
Blair said, "If these terrorists who killed over 6,000 people in America are allowed to carry on building up their terrorist network, possibly acquiring chemical, biological even nuclear weapons of mass destruction, our world will be an insecure, unsafe place and there will be no corner of the world -- particularly not a place like Britain -- that will be untouched by that."
