By IRNA,
London : Britain’s Ministry of Defence Friday reported the killing of four UK soldiers in Afghanistan in less than two days, bringing the total number of fatalities to 157 since joining US operations in the country back in 2001.
Two service personnel were said to have been killed as a result of a suicide Improvised Explosive Device, during a patrol in Gereshk, Helmand Province on Thursday afternoon.
Earlier it was announced that another British soldier died in an explosion in Sanguin, in the north of Helmand, when the patrol vehicle the soldier was travelling in was hit by an explosive device.
The killings followed the announcement of the death of a Black Watch soldier who was hit by a bullet during a patrol with the Afghan National Army in the vicinity of Woqab, near Musa Qala, also in Helmand.
The latest deaths bring the total number of British fatalities so far this year to 20 and come after 51 were killed last year, 42 in 2007 and 39 in 2006. The increasing toll compares with to just five deaths in the first five years.
The increasing trend suggests that the total number of British troops who have died in Afghanistan is likely to overtake by around the end of the year the 179 fatalities in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
The official number killed in Afghanistan as a result of hostile action has already grown to 128, only 8 fewer than the 136 killed in combat in Iraq.