LONDON - The ministry of defence dispatched 22,000 rounds of faulty ammunition for use in Afghanistan, at one point leading a platoon of paratroopers to refuse to go on patrol, The Daily Telegraph reported.

File picture of a British soldier taking up a firing position during a vehicle and foot patrol in Helmand, southern Afghanistan. The ministry of defence dispatched 22,000 rounds of faulty ammunition for use in Afghanistan, at one point leading a platoon of paratroopers to refuse to go on patrol, The Daily Telegraph reported. [AFP]

The newspaper said that British soldiers had to use ammunition from Canadian and Estonian troops to fight off Taliban attacks in Helmand province.

A spokeswoman for the British defence ministry, however, denied that the bullets in question were the problem, saying instead that the "soft mount", or aiming device placed on top of the gun, was to blame.

According to the Telegraph, when the 16 Air Assault Brigade was sent to Afghanistan in June, the defence ministry dispatched 178,000 FN03 rounds, and 22,000 FN02 rounds - FN03 rounds were developed after FN02 rounds were found to lack propellant for British-made machine guns.

An unnamed defence ministry official told the newspaper: "Although in an ideal world we would have sent all FN03 there was not a sufficient amount of it in stock."

"It would have been irresponsible to hold back ammunition that was deemed suitable for us, even though we knew that the FN03 had higher propulsion than the FN02. It would have been irresponsible also to leave people in theatre with a shortfall of ammunition."

The defence ministry spokeswoman, meanwhile, told AFP: "The machine gun stoppages were not caused by the ammunition. There was a problem caused by the soft-mount of the gun, which we have fixed."