Taliban Leader Killed in Missile Strike, Says Mod

A Taliban fighter accused of masterminding a string of attacks on UK forces in Afghanistan has been killed in a "deliberate and surgical strike", the Ministry of defense said last night.

The 35-year-old, who was known as Sadiqullah, was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a British helicopter last week. The news came as the MoD announced the death on Saturday of a soldier from B Company, the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

The MoD said the soldier was on patrol in the Lashkar Gar area when he stepped on what is thought to have been an old Soviet anti-personnel mine.

A total of 110 British service personnel have lost their lives since the start of operations in Afghanistan in 2001. Thirteen have been killed in the past four weeks.

defense officials also named the warrant officer killed on Friday when his vehicle overturned as Dan Shirley, from Leicester. The defence secretary, Des Browne, led the tributes to Shirley, 32. "I know that he will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends at what must be the most difficult of times," he said.

The deteriorating situation in Afghanistan was underlined at the weekend when the Pentagon warned the Taliban had regrouped. Yesterday a senior UN official said the number of civilians killed in the first half of this year had risen by nearly two-thirds to 698 compared with 2007.

British defence officials say Sadiqullah was "a mastermind" of many of the improvised roadside devices, mines and suicide bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan.

Lt Col Robin Matthews, a British military spokesman in Afghanistan, said: "This was a deliberate and surgical strike against a man who facilitated a number of fatal attacks on British, Nato and Afghan forces and civilians. It strikes a blow at the heart of the Taliban leadership."