The first of the 500 extra British troops promised by the prime minister last month have arrived in Afghanistan.
The soldiers from The 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh (Royal Welsh Fusiliers) stepped off a C-130 Hercules aircraft at Camp Bastion in the early hours.
The troops who set off from their headquarters at Dale Barracks in Chester landed at 0505 GMT.
They will deploy alongside the 9,000 other British troops already in Helmand after undergoing special training.
Stepping off the plane into the cold night air of Camp Bastion, Cpl Andrew Wrigley said: "It feels good, we've come to back-up the guys who are already here and hopefully make a bit of a difference."
2nd Lieutenant John Murphy said: "It feels good, it feels like you're doing an important job. It's good to finally get out here."
Soldiers from The 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh (Royal Welsh Fusiliers)
Fusilier Calvin Owen added: "We've just been waiting to get out here really, so we're out here now, let's do the job. It's good."
The troops will undergo a special in-theatre training package before deploying onto the ground alongside the 9,000 other British troops in Helmand.
In the coming weeks and months, it is expected that the soldiers of 1 Royal Welsh will conduct a variety of roles to include the mentoring of Afghan National Army and Police.
The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, confirmed in November that he was to send 500 more troops to Afghanistan, taking the total UK deployment to over 10,000.
He told MPs all conditions had now been met to send the extra personnel and that eight other countries had also offered additional troops.
At the weekend Mr Brown visited troops in Afghanistan, staying overnight at an army base.
On Monday he has announced that £150m will be spent on tackling improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan.
The prime minister promised that Afghan troops would be trained to detect and disable the IEDs.
Source:news.bbc.co.uk/
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