Three British soldiers were killed yesterday when their lightly armoured vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan — the deadliest attack on British troops this year.

A Marine from 45 Commando also died yesterday at Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham, two days after being shot in a clash with the Taleban north of Sangin in Helmand. He had been flown home.

The three killed yesterday were all from the 1st Battalion The Rifles. They had been escorting other British troops to a meeting with the Afghan National Army in Gereshk, central Helmand. Initial investigations indicate that the concealed bomb or mine was detonated either by a wire or buried pressure plates.

Eighty per cent of British fatalities in Afghanistan have been caused by explosive devices.

The threat is now considered so serious that John Hutton, the Defence Secretary, is expected to announce soon that he will be sending up to 300 bomb disposal specialists to Helmand to try to counter the growing risk faced by troops. This would increase the British military strength in Afghanistan to 8,600.

Some reports have indicated that British jihadists fighting for the Taleban have been involved in helping to design the high-tech improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that have killed so many troops.

The latest British victims of an IED were travelling in a converted Land Rover known as a WMIK (weapons-mounted installation kit), which is armed with a heavy machinegun, when they were hit by the bomb. They died later of their wounds. Next of kin have been informed.

The deaths were the latest blow for The Rifles, who have suffered a high casualty rate since they were deployed to Helmand in October as part of 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines. Eight soldiers from The Rifles have been killed in Helmand in two months, seven of them from the 1st Battalion.

The battalion is a light infantry unit that has been trained in a commando role. Many of its troops have completed the Royal Marine’s commando course. At present there are more than 500 from the regiment serving in Afghanistan, 300 of whom are involved in mentoring the Afghan Army.

The latest losses, including the Marine who died in hospital, bring British fatalities in Afghanistan to 149 since October 2001, 120 from enemy action.

The latest British casualties came as President Obama prepared to set out a 19-month timetable for pulling US combat troops out of Iraq to focus America’s main effort on Afghanistan.

John McCain, the defeated Republican presidential candidate, warned against becoming overoptimistic that a redeployment of troops to Afghanistan would halt a resurgent Taleban.

In a speech to the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, Mr McCain said that the US must brace itself for a war in Afghanistan that would become worse before it got better. “Let us make no mistake: we will fail in Afghanistan without a serious change in both strategy and resources,” said the former navy pilot. “A major change in course is long overdue.”

A Pentagon report recently urged Mr Obama to limit ambitions in Afghanistan so that there was less emphasis on nation-building and more on attacking Taleban and al-Qaeda forces in the country and across the border in Pakistan.

Mr Obama is expected to make his announcement about Iraq withdrawals tomorrow at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, where 8,000 US Marines are preparing for deployment to Afghanistan. The withdrawal plan agreed with the Pentagon would take all combat forces out of Iraq by August next year — three months later than he pledged during the election campaign but still before the December 2010 date preferred by commanders on the ground.

Mr Obama plans to leave a “residual force” in Iraq even after most of the 142,000 US troops in the country are withdrawn.

Coalition deaths since 2001

US 660

Britain 148

Canada 108

Germany 30

France 26

Denmark 22

Spain 25

Netherlands 18

Others 57

Sources: www.icasualties.org; Times database

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