A British soldier was shot dead in southern Iraq yesterday, the twelfth to die this month, providing further evidence of an alarming rise in violent attacks.

The soldier, from the 2nd Battalion The Rifles, was hit by small arms fire during a routine patrol in the al-Ashar district of Basra.

The Ministry of Defence, which has informed the next of kin, said that the soldier had dismounted from his vehicle and was making routine checks when he was hit.

It is suspected that a sniper has been operating in the area. Soldiers who have dismounted from their vehicles often walk ahead of their patrol to check the roadside for improvised explosive devices.

The MoD said that the soldier, who is the 146th member of the British Armed Forces to die in Iraq since early 2003 – 113 from enemy action – was evacuated to Basra Palace base but died of his injuries.

The 12 who have died in the past four weeks make this month the worst for fatalities since the campaign started.

Army chiefs are still considering whether Prince Harry should go to Iraq next month in his trained role as a troop reconnaissance leader with his unit, A Squadron of The Blues and Royals. One option for the Army is to put the Prince into a support squadron rather than a reconnaissance squadron, although the MoD said that at present the plan was to send him as a troop leader with his own squadron.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that body parts belonging to a serviceman killed in an RAF Nimrod crash in Afghanistan last September in which all 14 servicemen on board died were placed in the wrong coffin.The mix-up came to light before the funerals took place when personal items were returned to the wrong family.

The Ministry of Defence apologised for the error and agreed that it had been “a regrettable incident”.

Trish Knight, from Bridgwater, Somerset, whose son, Sergeant Benjamin Knight, 25, was one of the victims, told The Observer: “We don’t know how many mistakes were made over this, but body parts were found in a wrong coffin and there may well have been more parts mixed up.”

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