Corporal Ian Plank, 31, was serving with the Royal Marines Special Boat Service (SBS) and operating with the SAS near Mosul. Four other special forces troops were injured, although not seriously.

Corporal Plank, from Poole, Dorset, is the 52nd British serviceman to have died in Iraq since March. He was killed on Friday, but his death was not announced until yesterday.

The Britons are working with the Americans in Iraq searching for Saddam and other former regime members. The Ministry of Defence would give no details of the operation, but it is known that Corporal Plank died in a gunbattle.

An American soldier was killed and two of his colleagues injured yesterday when a bomb exploded on a road in Baghdad.

Mortar and rocket attacks earlier shook Baghdad when guerrillas struck at the heart of the US-led administration in its centre for the second night in succession. Four people were reported wounded.

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