In the past week four British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan. On 4 March, mass protests erupted after American forces shot dead 16 civilians. A family of nine, including four children aged between six months and five, were killed on 5 March after a US bombing raid.

In January 2006 then Defence Secretary John Reid announced the deployment of more than 3000 British troops to Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led task force in that country. Reid said that the British troops would focus on reconstruction and expressed the hope that they would leave Afghanistan 'without firing one shot'. Since then troop numbers have increased to over 7000 and 45 have been killed. British troops are involved in the most intensive warfare since the Korean war of the 1950s.

In Afghanistan there is precious little reconstruction being done. The NATO campaign now centres on large-scale aerial bombardment with 2000lb bombs regularly dropped on towns and villages throughout Southern Afghanistan. This has been accompanied by indiscriminate shootings of civilians by NATO forces.

Rather than making Afghanistan a 'stable, prosperous and democratic' country as John Reid predicted, the continued occupation and destruction of the country is leading to mass protests and increasing the strength of the Taliban.

The history of foreign occupation of Afghanistan is a dismal one. Many armies, from the British in the 19th century to the Soviet in the 20th, have been destroyed in that country.

The British deployment was expected to last three years but will now stretch into the indefinite future. There will be a high casualty rate amongst our armed forces and thousands of innocent civilians will continue to be killed.

The politicians who lied about the reasons for war in Iraq have also misled us about the war in Afghanistan. It has nothing to do with bringing democracy and freedom to the people of that country but everything to do with the neo-conservative strategy of endless war and terror.

In 2001 the Stop the War Coalition opposed the invasion of Afghanistan and argued that such action would increase terror throughout the world and destabilise the region. Events since then have only strengthened our case.

The Stop the War Coalition calls for the immediate return of British forces from Afghanistan.