First British Female Victim As Bomb Kills Four in Afghanistan

A female military intelligence soldier and three SAS reservists were killed by a roadside bomb in the deadliest attack so far on British troops in Afghanistan, defence officials disclosed yesterday.

The female soldier was the first British servicewoman to die in Afghanistan. The killing of the three special forces soldiers, from the 23rd Special Air Service Regiment, is believed to be the biggest single loss of life since the second world war in the territorial army, which is marking its 100th anniversary on Saturday.

The soldiers were on a joint British-Afghan counter-insurgency mission 10 miles north-east of Lashkar Gah, in Helmand province, when the blast hit their open-topped Land Rover on Tuesday afternoon. The soldiers had been supervising a checkpoint manned by Afghan police, a British spokesman in Lashkar Gah said. Three of the soldiers were killed in the blast and the fourth was pronounced dead on arrival at Camp Bastion, the main British base in Afghanistan.

A fifth soldier, wounded in the attack, was said to be in a stable condition. Next of kin had been informed, the Ministry of defense said, but the dead soldiers are not expected to be named until later today.

Nine British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan in nine days, most of them victims of roadside bombs and suicide attacks as the Taliban change tactics avoiding open confrontation with Nato troops. Yesterday's deaths take the number of British service personnel who have died in Afghanistan since the start of the US-led assault in November 2001 to 106.

Gordon Brown told MPs that troops were undertaking "difficult missions in the most dangerous of countries". He added: "They are on the noblest of missions. They are fighting for freedom for the Afghans, in their own country, and for the world in protecting us from terrorism. This house and this country is proud of them all."

The government announced on Monday that it was deploying 230 extra British troops to southern Afghanistan to bring the total deployed there by next spring to more than 8,000. They will consist of specialists to train Afghan forces and build up the civil infrastructure of the country.

Brown told the Commons yesterday: "We have made great progress against the Taliban. Their tactics have changed considerably. They are no longer fighting as an army. They are fighting as an insurgency. That's why we are seeing mines and roadside bombs ... and we are seeing Iraqi-style tactics practiced by the Taliban in Afghanistan."

The prime minister said British soldiers were "well-equipped" and would be "better-equipped in the months to come to deal with this new problem".

Fighting erupted on the outskirts of Kandahar city yesterday as Afghan and Canadian forces moved to oust militants from a strategic district that fell to the Taliban over the weekend. The Afghan defence ministry said 23 Taliban were killed in firefights across Arghandab, a farming district north-west of Kandahar. Two Afghan soldiers were also killed. But a Nato spokesman, Mark Laity, played down the fighting, describing it as "small fleeting engagements". Laity said he could not confirm Afghan government reports that a Nato air strike had killed 20 insurgents. "The best I've heard is that there's been no strike," he said.

Nevertheless worries for Kandahar remained high. A company of British paratroopers; about 120 soldiers ... fanned out across the city yesterday, conducting foot patrols amid rumors among Kandahar residents that the Taliban were about launch a bid for control of the city, Afghanistan's second largest and the spiritual center of the Taliban movement.