London  - A senior British government minister Wednesday joined the debate about Britain's strategy in Afghanistan by repeating the criticism that the forces there are ill-equipped to fight the Taliban insurgency in Helmand province.

"We definitely don't have enough helicopters. When you have these modern operations and insurgent strikes, what you need, above all else, is mobility," said Mark Malloch Brown, a Foreign Office minister whose responsibilities include Afghanistan.

Malloch Brown, who is stepping down for "personal reasons" at the end of this month, also said that the political future of Prime Minister Gordon Brown looked "incredibly bleak."

Malloch Brown widened his criticism over Afghanistan beyond the equipment issue by saying that the government had failed to prepare the British public for an "increase in the intensity of the campaign."

"We didn't do a good job a month ago of warning the British public that we and the Americans were going on the offensive in Helmand," he told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"This is a new operation; the whole purpose is to win control. These deaths have happened ... after we chose to go on the offensive," he said of the rising British death toll in Afghanistan.

Malloch Brown also suggested that the Taliban may have to contribute to a future Afghan government for there to be peace in the region.

Elements of the insurgents' "support group" may have to be invited back into "the political settlement" as a price of victory, said Malloch Brown, a former deputy secretary general of the United Nations and top diplomat. (dpa)