Afghanistan Follow

Rose Gentle of the Military Families Against the War speaks to the crowd at the rally after more than 50,000 people marched on the Stop the War Coalition 'Time to Go' demonstration against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for Tony Blair to go. The demonstration was in Manchester outside the venue of the Labour Party conference on Saturday 23 September 2006.

Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, speaks to the crowd at the rally after more than 50,000 people marched on the Stop the War Coalition 'Time to Go' demonstration against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for Tony Blair to go. The demonstration was in Manchester outside the venue of the Labour Party conference on Saturday 23 September 2006.

Lindsey German, convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, speaks to the crowd at the rally after more than 50,000 people marched on the Stop the War Coalition 'Time to Go' demonstration against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for Tony Blair to go. The demonstration was in Manchester outside the venue of the Labour Party conference on Saturday 23 September 2006.

John Rees of the Stop the War Coalition speaks to the crowd at the rally before more than 50,000 people marched on the Stop the War Coalition 'Time to Go' demonstration against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for Tony Blair to go. The demonstration was in Manchester outside the venue of the Labour Party conference on Saturday 23 September 2006.

Nahella Ashraf, chair of Manchester Stop the War, speaks to the crowd at the rally after more than 50,000 people marched on the Stop the War Coalition 'Time to Go' demonstration against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for Tony Blair to go. The demonstration was in Manchester outside the venue of the Labour Party conference on Saturday 23 September 2006.

Dr Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, speaks to the crowd at the rally after more than 50,000 people marched on the Stop the War Coalition 'Time to Go' demonstration against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for Tony Blair to go. The demonstration was in Manchester outside the venue of the Labour Party conference on Saturday 23 September 2006.

Tony Blair’s grip on political power is lurching deeper into crisis this week as the deaths of British soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq increase.

There is a full-scale war going on in Afghanistan, shattering British government claims that its troops would act as "peacekeepers".

We want the Labour Party conference, taking place in Manchester next month, to have at its heart the question of the war.

Today in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan we are experiencing a test in the limits of imperial power. On the face of it, the military might that Israel is projecting at Lebanon is overwhelming in its capacity to pulverise solid infrastructure and soft human bodies.

Tony Blair has ordered 900 more troops to Afghanistan, bringing the deployment in the country to 4,500. Six British troops, and untold and uncounted hundreds of Afghans, have died there in the past three weeks.

"Why had we thought the Afghans wouldn’t fight? They defeated the Russians after all."Christina Lamb, Times journalist embedded with the Parachute Regiment in Afghanistan