Our embassies and other diplomatic posts in both Afghanistan and Iraq are staffed by officials from a range of Government Departments, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development, the Ministry of Defence and (in Afghanistan) the Afghanistan Drugs Inter-Departmental Unit.
In Afghanistan, there are over 100 UK-based civilian officials in our embassy in Kabul and over 30 UK-based civilian officials in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. Their roles include work in governance, reconstruction and development, and counter narcotics. We plan to increase over the coming period staff numbers to further strengthen our efforts in Afghanistan: the precise details remain to be determined.
Over 50 UK-based civilian officials work in our embassy in Baghdad and our embassy offices in Basra and Erbil. They are there to support the democratically elected Government of Iraq in their efforts to achieve reconciliation, democracy, good governance, economic prosperity and security. We do not expect staff numbers to change significantly over the next three years.