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Apart from the main Quad countries – Australia, India, Japan, and the United States – many European countries are demonstrating a keener interest in playing a greater role in the Indo-Pacific, with the United Kingdom being the latest. Earlier in the week, U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace announced that the British Carrier Strike Group (CSG) led by HMS Queen Elizabeth will undertake a “global deployment” that would include visits to 40 countries including India, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. The deployment is also intended to reinforce the U.K.’s new position in the Indo-Pacific region. The group will include, on the surface, two Type 45 destroyers, HMS Defender and HMS Diamond; two Type 23 anti-submarine frigates, HMS Kent and HMS Richmond; and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s RFA Fort Victoria and RFA Tidespring. Also joining the mission will be a Royal Navy Astute-class submarine, fitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles.
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BBC News
By Frank Gardner
image captionWestern troops have been in Afghanistan since 2001
US, British and Nato combat forces are leaving Afghanistan this summer. The Taliban are growing stronger by the day while al-Qaeda and Islamic State groups are conducting ever more brazen attacks. So how can they be contained now that the West will no longer have military resources in the country?
Western intelligence officials believe they still aspire to plot international terrorist attacks from their Afghan hideouts, just as Osama Bin Laden did with 9/11.
It is a problem that is starting to vex UK policy chiefs as the deadline of 11 September for US President Joe Biden s withdrawal draws closer. As the British chief of defence staff, General Sir Nick Carter, said recently: This was not the outcome we had hoped for. There is now a serious risk that the gains made in counter-terrorism over the last 20 years, at enormous cost, could be undone as Afghanistan s future takes an uncertain tu