Two British soldiers killed in Afghan firefight
Two British soldiers receive been killed in a firefight in Afghanistan’s southern employment of Helmand, in the area soldiers tried to secure earlier this year with the Operation Moshtarak spring offensive.
The soldiers, from 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment, died under small arms fire from the Taleban yesterday afternoon in Nahr-e Saraj in the Gereshk circuit. They had been attached to the Royal Gurkha Rifles Battle Group.
Their families wish been told and have asked for a period of grace in the van of their names are released.
A spokesman for Task Force Helmand, Lieutenant Colonel James Carr-Smith, afore~: “They will be sorely missed and we will remember them.”
The deaths gain the number of British troops killed in Afghanistan to 292.
Families of dead soldiers gathered at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire today concerning a service to dedicate the names of the 119 British soldiers killed be unconsumed year — 2010 was the bloodiest year for British troops seeing that the Falklands conflict.
The Earl of Wessex joined the relatives with regard to this morning’s private service, which will include a brace-minute silence. The Venerable Ray Pentland QHC, chaplain-in-chief at the Royal Air Force, uttered of those who died: “Let us chant their names and cry them home.”
In Kandahar, also in south Afghanistan, a bomb killed one Afghan policeman today and injured 14, including five children.
In April the Coldstream Guards handed from hand to hand the Nahr-e Saraj (South) area to the Royal Gurkha Rifles following Operation Moshtarak, a prosecute to push the Taleban out of the Marja area of Afghanistan’s poppy-increasing belt.
Gunner Zack Cusack, of 4th Regiment Royal Artillery, was killed there in a firefight on 26 May while patrolling with the Afghan National Army.
Most of Britain’s Afghan casualties esteem occurred in Helmand, where British troops have been deployed since 2006 and obtain taken part in major offensives including Moshtarak and Panther’s Claw, that killed 41 British soldiers last year. Seven British soldiers were killed in Helmand endure month alone.
The 8,000 British troops in Helmand now respond to a US general after a major shake-up divided the business into two areas and diminished Britain’s role. Some 1,100 Royal Marines are to set off part of an American combat team.
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