Suicide bomb takes British death toll in Afghanistan to 100

The men had been on foot patrol in the upper Sangin valley in the heart of the killing fields of Helmand where ferocious battles had been fought out between British, Nato and Afghan forces and the Taliban. The suicide bomber is said to have approached the patrol as it was going past a hamlet at about 11am and detonated his vest packed with explosives.

Four soldiers injured were taken to the British base at Camp Bastion, where three of the men died from their injuries. The remaining survivor is expected to make a recovery. It was the biggest single loss of life suffered by British troops in the country in enemy action since August last year, when three men from 1st Battalion, the Royal Anglian Regiment were killed when an American fighter dropped a 500lb bomb near their position.

The escalation in the ranks of those killed in the Afghan conflict, with many more injured, came after UK troops were deployed in large numbers in Helmand in the spring of 2006. John Reid, the Defence Secretary at the time, declared that Britain hoped to finish its mission without a shot being fired in anger. The following two years of combat saw more than five million rounds fired in what has been described as the fiercest fighting faced by British soldiers since the Korean War in the Fifties.