A British soldier killed fighting rebels in southern Afghanistan was named by the Ministry of Defence today as Lance Corporal Jonathan Hetherington.

Lance Corporal Hetherington, 22, from 14 Signal Regiment, died early yesterday morning in clashes with Taleban fighters in the lawless southern Helmand province, during attacks on a fortified position defended by about 30 British troops in Musa Qala.

It was the fourth Taleban assault on the British platoon house in Musa Qala in the past seven days.

The soldier, who was serving with 14 Signal Regiment, was part of a small batch of British troops who have been holding out against the Taleban since June. Every time the troops are relieved by replacement units the Taleban have tried to ambush the incoming soldiers.

The latest attack happened in the early hours of the morning. The soldier died instantly. He was the twenty-first British soldier to die in Afghanistan since 2001, fifteen of them from hostile action.

He was also the eighth soldier to die in combat this month and the twelfth killed since the beginning of June.

The Ministry of Defence said that the soldier’s family had been informed.

Lance Corporal Hetherington was named hours after 17 people were killed and dozens injured in a crowded market in southern Afghanistan by a Taleban suicide bomber, who grabbed the former police chief before detonating the bombs strapped to him.

The suicide bomber walked into the market in the Helmand province town of Lashkar Gah, and grabbed Khan Mohammad, who was the Helmand police of chief during communist rule in the 1980s.

Fifteen children were among the 50 injured, six of whom are said to be in a critical condition.

The attack was blamed on "enemies of Afghanistan", a term Afghan officials usually use to refer to fighters with the Taleban movement which has been waging an increasingly bloody insurgency.

"A suicide bomber detonated inside a crowded market in Lashkar Gah," Haji Muhaidin Khan, a Helmand government spokesman, told AFP news agency.

Talking about Mr Mohammad he added: "He had no personal feud with anyone and he was not a political figure now. He was just busy in his business, but the enemies of Afghanistan killed him."

A bodyguard of the businessman said that one of Mr Mohammed’s brothers and a nephew were among the dead. "Many more were also killed and wounded," he said.

Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, denied that it was a suicide attack but said it was a remote-controlled bomb that had targeted the former police chief because he had served under the pro-communist government during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s.

"We are very sad about the civilian casualties," Ahmadi said in a phone call from an undisclosed location to an Associated Press reporter in Kandahar. "We only wanted to kill this former police chief."

British troops, part of Nato’s International Security Assistance Force, are based in five outlying areas in northern Helmand: Sangin, Musa Qala, Gareshk, Kajaki and Nowzad. All five outposts have been targeted consistently by the Taleban in recent months.

The long-term plan is to replace the British troops in these outposts with soldiers from the Afghan National Army.

The MoD said yesterday that the Royal Military Police special investigations branch was examining six incidents where British soldiers have been involved in shootings that led to civilian deaths or injuries.

Under the rules of engagement covering all Nato troops in Afghanistan, soldiers are limited to responding "proportionately" whenever fired upon. Military sources said that if heavy firepower was used to kill a Taleban sniper firing from an area filled with civilians, it would be deemed disproportionate because of the risk of killing innocent people.

However, the sources said that the rules of engagement were "pretty robust" and provided the "absolute right of self-defence".

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