Sweltering in 20kgs of body armour in 40C heat, the “guardian angels” of the Royal Anglian Regiment are still in Afghanistan. Their job is to protect the foreign advisers who are helping the Afghans establish infrastructure to make the post-Taleban state sustainable.

BRITAIN may have declared combat operations in Afghanistan officially at an end, but its Army still has a presence in the wartorn country.

The Union Flag was lowered when Camp Bastion, Britain’s last remaining base in the country was handed to the Afghan military last October, ending a 13- year conflict which claimed the lives of 453 British soldiers.

British troops remain in the country, however, mainly near the capital city Kabul.

Their main job is to protect the host of foreign advisers who are continuing the work of rebuilding the country.

One such soldier is 23-year-old Lance- Corporal Andrew Lawrence from Westcliff, a soldier for four years, who has spent five months of his six-month tour of duty in Kabul.

He says: “It’s my first tour. We rotate our patrols, but basically, we’re doing force protection for advisers around the city, helping out the local Afghan protection forces such as the police and the civil order and border police.

“We also do quick response force work – reacting to any incidents in the city, but, on the whole, if Afghan nationals are involved, we leave it to the local authorities.”

The nature of the current British mission means the grim headlines we saw back home while the Army was fighting the Taleban in Helmand province are no longer common.

L/Cpl Lawrence says so far, his time in Afghanistan has been largely uneventful.

He explains: “It’s been a quiet deployment. We do our job and, most of the time, we have evenings to rest ourselves to go the next day.

“People expect it to be some sort of violent area, but the city isn’t that bad. Only the odd few people will want to do anything out of the ordinary.

“It’s so overpopulated though, it’s unreal. When you’re travelling from one compound to another, you can easily get stuck in traffic for a couple of hours. In general, the people don’t mind us being here. It’s only certain extremists that say anything about it.”

Following the end of the Royal Anglians’ tour next month, a Scottish regiment is due in, allowing L/Cpl Lawrence and his comrades some muchneeded rest before their next deployment, in 2016 –most likely somewhere in Europe.

He says: “The main thing you miss out here is being able to do what you want.

“You’re confined to this one area of an operational theatre, in a country where there are still people out there who want to hurt us.

“You can’t really live your own life out here. “We’re always working – there’s always something you should be doing.”