The death toll of British servicemen in Iraq has reached 175 after an airman was killed in a rocket attack on Basra airbase.

The serviceman, who was attached to 903 Expeditionary Air Wing, died when the base, in southern Iraq, came under fire at about 9.30pm on Friday night.

The death is the first British fatality in the country this year after a period of two and a half months without a death.

The last serviceman killed after serving in Iraq was Stephen Ferguson, from the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, on 13 December 2007. He died despite treatment for injuries sustained when an armoured vehicle he was in slid into a canal in the dark.

The Ministry of Defence said the relatives of the most recent victim had been informed and his body would be flown back to RAF Lyneham, in Wiltshire, in due course.

Earlier today, after Prince Harry was safely flown home from Afghanistan, Prince Charles paid tribute to the dangerous role soldiers are placed in.

“I feel very strongly that we don’t often appreciate what the people in the armed forces are doing, putting up with the most impossible conditions, very often in hazardous circumstances in heat or freezing cold, being shot at or rocketed at and goodness knows what else,” he said.

“The fact they do this with incredible humour and dedication is extraordinary and so we owe them an enormous debt of gratitude for performing their duty in this incredible way.”

The British death toll in Iraq has been reduced since troops withdrew from a base at Basra Palace to the city's airport in September.

Since then three service personnel, including Guardsman Ferguson, have died following vehicle accidents and three SAS members have been killed on operations.

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