Britain announced Friday it was mobilizing 600 elite Royal Marines commandos for a possible ground mission in Afghanistan in a major stepping up of the US-led coalition against terrorism.
Officials said further ground forces could be deployed "within two or three days" if reinforcements were needed.
Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram also signaled that Britain would step up its involvement in the air campaign over Afghanistan.
Ingram told the British parliament that 200 crack Marines were "immediately available" in the Gulf area, with 400 more to be on high alert and ready to deploy from Britain.
This "represents a major enhancement of the coalition's capabilities," he told the House of Commons.
Britain will maintain a total of 4,200 service personnel including support staff as part of its military force in the Gulf, which includes warships, submarines and warplanes.
However, Ingram said no decision had been taken to deploy large-scale British ground forces.
The group of 200 commandos will remain in the Gulf on board the Royal Navy ship HMS Fearless instead of returning as originally planned with other British troops from huge military exercises in Oman next week, Ingram said.
"Some 200 men of 40 Commando Royal Marines, based in Taunton (southwest Britain) will be aboard HMS Fearless as a lead element of an immediately available force to help support the operations," Ingram said.
Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the commitment of additional forces to the campaign against Afghanistan's Taliban regime was essential for the defense of national security and of civilized values.
Speaking on British Forces radio, Blair said that if Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the September 11 terror attacks in the United States, and his al-Qaeda network were not stopped, there was a danger they could acquire nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction.
"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."
The British marines who have been mobilised are part of 3 Commando Brigade, the army's elite mountain and winter warfare specialists, and have been training intensively in the Omani desert as part of more than 20,000 British troops on Exercise Saif Sareea II (Swift Sword II).
Michael Boyce, the chief of the defence staff, told a press conference that paratroopers from the rapid-reaction 16 Air Assault Brigade, recently part of a NATO force to collect rebel weapons in Macedonia, could be deployed within days if reinforcements for ground operations were needed.
"We have got infantry, armour, the 16 airborne brigade, paratroopers. They are all (available) at very short notice and if their particular skills, abilities and indeed mass are required then many of those can be deployed in the course of just two or three days or so."
British military hardware in the Gulf will include the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious while a "submarine presence" will be maintained, with the ability to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles, Ingram added.
Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft and Hercules transport planes will also remain in the area.
Britain has played a mainly logistical role during three weeks of US-led air strikes on Afghanistan, although British submarines have twice fired cruise missiles -- so far the only direct European role in the attacks.
Ingram told the House of Commons: "We have said we are in this for the long haul and we mean it."
Signaling greater British involvement in the air campaign against Afghanistan, Ingram said: "Our current forces are primarily configured to assist in the coalition's air campaign.
"That campaign will continue and develop over time. So must the capabilities we assign to it.
"We have therefore decided to create a large and re-balanced force in the region." -- LONDON (AFP)
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