Cost of UK war in Afghanistan to rise 50 pct - report

LONDON (Reuters) - The cost of British military operations in Afghanistan will rise more than 50 percent this year, a parliamentary committee said on Monday, as it called on the government to better justify the expense.

According to figures provided by the Treasury, costs will rise to 2.32 billion pounds ($3.5 bln) in 2008/9, from 1.51 billion in 2007/08, an increase of 54 percent, as Britain concentrates on the deepening Afghan conflict.

And despite an intention to withdraw almost all its forces from Iraq in the first half of next year, the cost of Britain's operations in Iraq will fall by just 4.1 percent, parliament's Defence Committee said in a statement.

In total, the government is requesting 3.74 billion pounds to meet the cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008/9, which the committee described as a "very significant sum of public money" that needed to be more fully explained.

"The reasons for the increases and the magnitude of costs in general are still not transparent enough," said James Arbuthnot, the chairman of the committee.

"The Ministry of Defence needs to provide a more coherent picture of what these costs really represent on the ground in the future."

Much of the increase is expected to come from providing more armoured vehicles to the 8,100 troops serving in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has mounted a resurgence in the past six months, detonating roadside bombs and carrying out ambushes.

Four British troops have been killed in Afghanistan in the past week and more than 130 have died since the conflict began in late 2001, when Britain joined the U.S.-led invasion.

The government announced in October it would buy 700 more armoured vehicles for frontline troops, largely a response to the Taliban's increasing ability to hit convoys and destroy lightly armed vehicles with powerful roadside bombs.