POLITICIANS, church leaders and the Army have joined forces to support America and Britain's all-out strike against Afghanistan. But Medway MP Bob Marshall-Andrews has expressed his caution that an on-going campaign would be a "grave and serious error."

He said: "It is imperative to show that our fight is not against the Afghan people. If the strikes are a forerunner of action taken on the ground to arrest and apprehend Osama bin Laden and others responsible for the atrocities on September 11, then I support them.

"If what we are seeing is the beginning of a long and drawn out bombing campaign that will go on for days and weeks, it would be a grave and serious error. All a heavy bombing campaign will do is send Afghanistan even further back into the stone ages and alienate the entire Arab and Muslim world."

Gillingham MP Paul Clark said: today: "Obviously, it is regrettable that military action had to be taken. There were clear ultimatums to hand over the terrorists, but unfortunately these fell on deaf ears. It should be clear that this is against the terrorists and not against the Islamic religion."

Chatham and Aylesford MP Jonathan Shaw said: "The Prime Minister has been at the forefront of building a wide basis of consensus to rid the world of the terrorist threat which is harboured in Afghanistan.

"The attacks are based on intelligence and will therefore be aimed at military installations and bin Laden's training camps. What is essential is that we have an exit strategy as well. That means a United Nations supervisionary force to bring about stable government in Afghanistan.

"There is a huge responsibility not to just turn our backs on Afghanistan after we have resolved the matter of bin Laden and the Taliban."

Medway's Mayor Tony Goulden said: "It is important that there should be no backlash against the Muslims of Medway."