Most Britons believe troops should never have been deployed to Afghanistan, according to a new poll Thursday. Despite their opposition to operations, however, the majority said they would support their child if he or she decided to join the army. In a survey of 2,000 people for Britain's National Army Museum, 53 percent disagreed with the deployment to Afghanistan, compared to just 25 percent who thought it was a good idea. Britain has about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of an international coalition, most of them located in the volatile southern province of Helmand. The telephone survey was carried out by ICM Research from August 21-23, at the end of a bloody summer that saw 44 British service personnel killed in Afghanistan between June and August. A total of 213 have died there since the US-led invasion in 2001. Another soldier died Wednesday, during a raid to free a New York Times (NYT) reporter, Stephen Farrell, kidnapped at the weekend. Meanwhile, the survey showed an even larger proportion of respondents, 60 percent, said they disagreed with sending British troops to Iraq. Just 20 percent said they agreed with the deployment, which formally ended in July this year. However, when asked how they would react to their child wishing to join the army, 64 percent said they would support them, compared to 32 percent who said they would try to discourage them. 