Brown lauds "brave" British troops in Afghanistan surge

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown lauded British forces taking part in one of NATO's biggest offensives against the Taliban in Afghanistan, saying their success had been exceptional.

He paid tribute to a British soldier who died during the offensive, called Operation Moshtarak.

"This has been an effort that has involved hundreds of our troops taking very brave and courageous action ... ," he said on Saturday.

A relatively low number of insurgents had been killed, and no civilian casualties were reported.

U.S. Marines spearheaded long-awaited offensives elsewhere in southern Afghanistan. In total, 15,000 troops took part in the operation, an early test of U.S. President Barack Obama's troop surge policy.

British and Afghanistan troops were engaged in the Nad Ali district securing key objectives quickly "with minimum interference" from the Taliban, the Ministry of Defense said.

"The Taliban have not been able to put up a coherent response, and appear confused and disjointed," Major General Gordon Messenger, chief of the defense staff's strategic communications officer, told reporters in London.

"There have been a number of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) finds, and there have been a number of occasions where IEDs have been pointed out by the (local) population."

Troops would aim to consolidate the area over the coming weeks so the local population could feel safer and look to the Afghan government for their needs rather than the Taliban, he added.

Brown said he believed "something very significant" had been achieved by British and Afghanistan forces during the offensive, and work would begin on restoring the justice system, schools and hospitals.

"It is our intention that we break the Taliban, divide the Taliban, split the Taliban as a result of the support that we can get from the Afghan population," he said.