GORDON Brown has been told to bring our troops home by the sister of a Manchester soldier killed in the War on Terror.

Karla Ellis, 28, told the Prime Minister the Government's strategy in Afghanistan was not working and instead called for Britain to pull out of the war-torn country.

Her brother, Private Lee Ellis, 23, a father of one, was killed by a roadside bomb while serving with the 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, in Iraq in February 2006.

Ms Ellis, who is now active with a number of groups raising cash for injured soldiers and their families, spoke at a question-and- answer session with Mr Brown with a live audience, organised by Key 103, a radio station based in Manchester.

"How many of our under-equipped soldiers have to die before the powers that be do the right thing, instead of trying to save face, and bring them home?" Ms Ellis said.

The Prime Minister said he too wanted to see troops return home but, since 2001, three-quarters of terrorist plots against the UK had been traced back to the border area of Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Weapons

"I want to get our troops home as quickly as possible," he said. "The way we can do it is to train up the Afghans themselves. The Taliban have access to weapons they can use indiscriminately against you or me on the streets of cities in Britain. What we are facing in Afghanistan is an insurgency, it is guerilla warfare."

Mr Brown said the country needed a stronger army and police, and corruption had to be tackled and the recent election, beset by claims of vote-fixing, was "less than perfect".

Ms Ellis, from Wythenshawe, Manchester, told him: "I don't think that strategy will work. You can't trust these people."

Mr Brown told her that, by getting UK troops to train the local army and police, they are helping the Afghans themselves to defeat al Qaida and the Taliban.