Operation Herrick is the codename for the British part of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) campaign in Afghanistan.
[4] As of June 2010, the Prime Minister stated that the threat to the UK from Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan and Pakistan has reduced, primarily due to the current strategy, although this was assessed as not yet irreversible.
[5] The UK, under both the Labour (April 2009 - May 2010)[4][6] and Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition[2] (May 2010 - May 2015) Governments, considered the end-state to be the long term denial of both Afghanistan and Pakistan as a base for Al-Qaeda under Taliban authority.
[2] During 2006-2009 the UK forces were stretched[7] and ISAF did not possess sufficient manpower to clear, hold and thereby extend security and governance[2][6] to the wider Regional Command South.
The US surge of additional troops, equipment and resources of 2009/10 into Southern Afghanistan, increased the ISAF presence within Helmand to 20,000 US Marines, with approx 8,000 UK forces.
[1] The surge and continued growth of the Afghan Security Forces have enabled a rebalancing of the ISAF presence in the main populated areas in Helmand.
[4] The Taliban having failed in 2006 and 2007 to defeat international forces by conventional means, have more than doubled their Improvised explosive device (IED) attacks over the past year and this remains the greatest challenge.
[1][2] The UK's position under the Labour government (April 2009 - May 2010) was to continually adapt and improve its strategy for Central Helmand to achieve the end state and did not seek to prematurely disengage from the region.
In the near term the UK seeks to provide the underpinning stability and security to create space for the development of the Afghan authorities to a point where they are able[1][2] to provide, on a sustainable basis, the capability and governance to manage their own security in order to support the political settlement in ending the insurgency and continue to prevent the use of Afghanistan as a base from which terrorists can plot and launch attacks.