By IRNA,
London : Britain’s death toll in Afghanistan has reached 325, following the announcement on Tuesday of another soldier killed in an explosion in Helmand province.
According to the Ministry of Defence, the latest fatality occurred on Monday in the Sangin area, where British troops are due to be replaced by American forces.
A majority of British deaths have been caused by Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) often roadside bombs, while almost a third have been killed in and around Sangin.
The latest death comes as Labour MP Eric Joyce, a former parliamentary aide to the defence secretary, warned that the unprecedented leaking of US military documents on the war in Afghanistan could be a “game changer.”
“The trouble for the US and UK government now is that most people are coming to feel that our military operations in Afghanistan are unlikely to achieve our apparent aims and this will lead them to demand answers,” Joyce said.
“The British public will want to hear less about imaginary special relationships and more about how we can keep them secure while ending the grave announcements (of deaths) made at prime minister’s questions each week,” he said in an article for the Guardian newspaper.
The publication of 90,000 US military records by Wikileaks on Monday reveals many tragic stories of the human costs of the nine-year war, including numerous civilian deaths previously unreported.
Former Liberal Democrat leader and spokesman on defence and foreign affairs, Sir Menzies Campbell, said the documents showed how difficult it will be for UK troops to leave Afghanistan in 2015, the date set by David Cameron.
“The leaked documents show just how awesome the task will be to bring the Afghan police and army to a condition where they can be responsible for security,” said Campbell.
Former foreign secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, said the reality is that there has been “a realisation for several years that we are not going to get some outright military victory … perversely these documents may well make that clear to the public too.”