TWO British soldiers were killed yesterday and a third was wounded by a roadside bomb in southern Iraq.

The two who died in al-Amarah brought the total number of deaths in Operation Telic, the British military campaign in Iraq, to 103. They were serving with 7th Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats, although the Ministry of Defence kept back the name of their individual regiment because of difficulties tracing their next of kin.

Video film taken afterwards showed local people throwing rocks at troops arriving on the scene. A blazing vehicle,thought to be that carrying the bomb, and two Land Rovers, one of which was badly damaged, were also visible.

Tony Blair’s official spokesman said that the Prime Minister was “sadly aware” of the deaths. The casualties come at a time of heightened tension between British forces and Iraqis. Two regional councils in southern Iraq have suspended relations with British troops. They were angered by the arrest by the British of allegedly corrupt police officers with links to death squads and the release this month of film taken in 2004 showing soldiers beating youths in al-Amarah.

Weapons intelligence experts were sent to the scene of yesterday’s attack to try to recover parts of the device. Defence sources said it was possible there was more than one and attempts would be made to discover whether they were crude or sophisticated.

More than ten British soldiers have been killed by advanced roadside bombs called “explosively formed projectiles”, which consist of copper slugs launched at five kilometres a second that are capable of penetrating armoured Land Rovers.

Defence sources said that troops used counter-measures to try to avoid the bombs but no system was guaranteed to work. The vehicle attacked in al-Amarah was one of the “snatch” Land Rovers sent from Northern Ireland.

Pauline Hickey, 50, the mother of Sergeant Christian Hickey, who was killed in a roadside bomb incident in Basra last October, told The Times yesterday she was planning to deliver a letter to Mr Blair today to explain her rising concerns about the deaths of soldiers in Iraq.

She said: “I still can’t get used to speaking about my son in the past tense. Two more soldiers have now died. Isn’t it time to let the Iraqi people decide their own future and bring the troops home?”

The latest British casualties occurred as violence rose throughout Baghdad 24 hours after the suspension of a citywide curfew. Bombs killed at least 41 people and injured scores in half an hour.

In the predominantly Shia New Baghdad neighbourhood a suicide attacker joined a queue of people waiting to buy fuel at a garage. Detonating an explosive vest packed with steel ballbearings, he ignited a petrol tanker; 23 people died.

In the same district, a car bomb aimed at a police patrol killed nine civilians. A third car bomb exploded in a small market opposite the Shia Timimi mosque in the Karradah neighborhood, killing four and injuring 16. Execution-style killings continued, with the discovery of nine more bullet-riddled bodies, including a Sunni Muslim tribal sheikh, southeast of Baghdad. The Iraqi army found the bodies near two burned out minibuses along the road from Baghdad in Iraq’s strife-prone Diyala province. The victims included Sheikh Hamid Irbat Ghazi, of the influential Mahamdeh tribe, and two of his nephews.

The Iraqi Cabinet said 379 people died and 458 were wounded in attacks in the week since bombers destroyed the golden dome at al-Askariya shrine in Samarra. The figure does not include yesterday’s victims.

The fresh violence exacerbates fears that the country may be sliding toward a civil war.

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