British soldier killed in explosion in Afghanistan

Another British soldier has been killed near Sangin in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said today. The British soldier, from 1 Rifles, the sixth to be killed in the Sangin area within a week, died from an explosion while on foot patrol, the MoD said. The soldier's death brings the number of British military casualties in Afghanistan since the conflict began in 2001 to 272. On Sunday, the MoD named the two teenagers killed in separate incidents there on Friday and Saturday as Rifleman Jonathon Allott, 19, from Bournemouth, and Rifleman Liam Maughan, 18, from Doncaster. Both men were members of 3rd Battalion The Rifles. The MoD also announced yesterdaythat a soldier from 4 Rifles had been shot dead. The soldier, attached to the same battalion as the teenage casualties, was shot when his patrol base came under attack from insurgents. Last Tuesday, Corporal Richard Green, 23, from Reading, was shot dead while at a checkpoint near Sangin. Last Monday, March 1, Rifleman Carlo Apolis of 4th Battalion The Rifles, was killed by a gunshot wound, also in Sangin. Defence spokesman Major General Gordon Messenger described Sangin as an area that mattered "deeply both to the Taliban and the Afghan government". That was why it was so keenly contested, he said. Sangin lies north of the area taken by thousands of US, UK, and Afghan troops in Operation Moshtarak, prompting speculation that the Taliban had fled to Sangin where British soldiers could be considered as more vulnerable. Messenger said there was no evidence that the number of attacks on British troops in the area was due to fighters moving away from the Operation Moshtarak area. He added: "We cannot discount, however, that the upsurge in activity is a deliberate ploy by the Taliban leadership to deflect attention from the successes in central Helmand."