Kabul: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited UK troops near the front lines with the Taliban in the country s volatile south and condemned Taliban for using child soldiers in attacks which killed three royal marines.

Brown said the presence of international troops in Afghanistan is critical to stem terrorism and to support Afghan elections next year as he visited troops in the volatile Helmand province.

He is visiting one day after four British troops were killed in Helmand by a 13-year-old boy suicide bomber. Brown expressed "disgust and horror" that the Taliban used a child soldier as a suicide bomber in one of the attacks, which killed three Marines.

The prime minister said people in Britain and elsewhere are safer because of the international effort in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. Britain has some 8,200 troops in Afghanistan, based mostly in Helmand.
Source : PTI