One of the two British paratroopers killed in Afghanistan on Saturday was named today as the first British Muslim to die in battle since before the first Gulf war.

Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi and Corporal Peter Thorpe were killed in an attack in Sangin, in the Helmand Province in the south of the country.

The brother of Lance Corporal Hashmi today paid tribute to his "happy but cheeky" younger sibling and said that it had been his brother’s lifelong dream to be in the army.

The pair were named as as the commander of British forces in Afghanistan revealed that he had asked for extra equipment and hinted that he may ask for more soldiers to tackle the intensifying battle with the Taleban in the south of the country.

Brigadier Ed Butler, asked if he would like more troops, on BBC Radio 4's Today programme said: "As with any commander, I would always like to have more resources so I can do things faster and quicker. But I’m pragmatic about what we have got."

Junior defence minister Tom Watson, standing in for Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, made a statement in the House of Commons this afternoon denying that the British remit in Afghanistan had been forced to change from reconstruction to war-fighting, as opposition MPs asked to know if the British operation was experiencing mission creep.

Violence had been expected, he insisted. "That was why we sent an air mobile battle group, artillery and Apache attack helicopters. We wouldn’t have deployed such a formidable package if we didn’t think there was a real threat to the safety of our armed forces.

"It was not pulled together on a whim. We did not pick and choose." Mr Watson added that any requests for extra equipment would be considered - but stressed that there had not been a request for extra troops.

"We sent what the top military advice in the country, the chiefs of staff, said we should send. There has never been a sense that our aims and objective were unfocused.

"Despite press reports today, commanders have not asked for extra infantry or air cover. The latest requests, to the chiefs of staff, were for enablers and engineering equipment, and these had been expected from the outset."

Around 3,300 British soldiers are presently deployed in Afghanistan, mostly in the rugged, hot province of the Helmand, with the official task of taking over a Nato mission of peacekeeping and reconstruction. But they have found themselves in a full-time combat situation, with daily ambushes and gunbattles clashes with Taleban militants.

The two paratroopers were killed on Saturday when their base came under attack from Taleban fighters for the third night in a row. Five British soldiers have died in the same, Sangin district of the Helmand in the last three weeks.

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