Tony Blair: We need ‘boots on the ground’ to tackle terrorism

Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair says we need “boots on the ground” in order to tackle terrorism as he discusses the consequences of the US withdrawing from Afghanistan.

During his speech to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 attacks, Blair told the Royal United Services Institute to remove an entrenched threat of terrorism “we need boots on the ground".

"We need boots on the ground, naturally our preference is for those boots to be local but that will not always be possible," he said.

Mr Blair also said that deadly bio-weapon attacks were no longer in the “realm of science fiction”.