A foot patrol of British soldiers recounted the moment that they survived an attack by a suicide bomber only to run into an ambush by the Taleban as they picked themselves up after the blast.

“It's the luck of the Irish,” said Sergeant Paul Harrison, 27, from Liverpool, who survived the attack along with the rest of his patrol from the 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Regiment.

The incident took place on the outskirts of Sangin, the northern Helmand town where two years ago British paratroopers held out with a platoon of about 30 soldiers against a resurgent Taleban, which attacked its position in the district centre with small arms, mortar attacks and machinegun fire.

Today there are more than 200 soldiers defending an expanded base and going out on patrols.

The soldiers were returning to Sangin after a patrol without incident when one group, 9 Platoon, commanded by Lieutenant Tom Coke-Smyth, 24, of 2 Para, spotted a man sitting against a compound wall.

“He didn't look like a suicide bomber, he had a beard, [it's normal for suicide bombers to be clean-shaven]” the Lieutenant said.

Corporal Stuart Pankhurst, 30, from Dundonald in Northern Ireland, who was heading a section of eight soldiers, said: “We passed him but then he got up and walked two paces. He had shoulder pads and was a bit bulkier than normal. He looked like he was in his 40s or 50s and was quite scruffy, like he had crawled out of a hole.”

“There was a massive blast and the whole section was blown off its feet,” he added.

The soldiers saw bits of clothing and body parts from the bomber coming towards them.

As soon as the soldiers had picked themselves up Corporal Sean Benson, 22, from Shankill, near Belfast, saw a man on the roof of the same compound with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

“I fired five rounds at him and he went down,” he said.

Some of the soldiers, armed with a general purpose machinegun, took up position on the roof from where they saw five or six gunmen on the ground not far away. A second gunman who was on the roof ran off.

Lieutenant Coke-Smyth called for assistance and an Apache attack helicopter arrived but the Taleban had fled down one of the many rat-runs in Sangin.

The soldiers, using stun grenades, burst into the compound to clear it in case fighters from the Taleban were still there. Lance-Corporal Paul Johnston, 22, from Newtownards, near Belfast, cleared the neighbouring compound.

“I think it's most likely that we disturbed the ambush before the Taleban were ready. The flanking section stopped them getting fixed. We were lucky,” Lieutenant Coke-Smyth said.

Major Graham Shannon, the officer commanding the Ranger Company, which was also on the patrol, said the locals later disclosed that the suicide bomber was a Pakistani from Waziristan, the tribal area in Pakistan that borders Afghanistan.

“I think the suicide bomber was spooked. It was a lucky break for the soldiers and good patrol skills,” Major Shannon said.

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