New Zealanders divided on sending troops to Afghanistan

Wellington - New Zealanders are divided on whether the government should have sent crack special forces troops back to the war in Afghanistan, according to a newspaper opinion poll published on Tuesday. The New Zealand Herald-DigiPoll survey showed that 44.6 per cent of those questioned approved the deployment of 71 Special Air Service soldiers fighting the Taliban, while 43.1 per cent opposed their participation in the war.

New Zealand's conservative National Party government elected 12 months ago did not decide until September whether to make a fourth deployment of combat troops to the controversial war despite constant pressure for a commitment from the United States.

The poll was published two days after a patrol of New Zealand army engineers, who are part of a 130-strong provincial reconstruction team working in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province, was fired on after being ambushed by Taliban fighters.

The 12-member patrol escaped without injuries but had to call on American helicopter gunships to fight off the attackers.

Prime Minister John Key told a news conference Monday that the Bamiyan province had become "a little more dangerous" than it was when the first engineers were sent to the region by the previous government in 2003.

The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Phil Goff, told the Herald he was not surprised people were divided over the return of the SAS, because "there was no reason for them to be in the war in its current stage propping up President Hamid Karzai's corrupt regime."