Latest British casualty of war is honoured

TRIBUTES were paid yesterday to the second British soldier known to have died in combat in Iraq.

The latest victim was named locally as Barry Stephen, 31, a Lance Corporal with the 1st Battalion The Black Watch, from Scotland.

He was killed in action near Al Zubayr in southern Iraq on Monday night. His family have been informed.

His death follows that of a British soldier who died from his wounds yesterday after being shot while trying to calm civilian rioting at Al Zubayr on Sunday.

He was named today as 33-year-old married father Sergeant Steven Roberts, from Bradford in West Yorkshire.

Al Zubayr is 15 miles west of Basra, Iraq's second city, where British forces have been engaged in heavy fighting.

The total number of British deaths in the war so far is 18 eight Royal Marines died when a helicopter crashed in Kuwait last week, six servicemen were killed when two helicopters collided over the Gulf, and two more were killed on Sunday when their RAF Tornado was brought down by "friendly fire" from a US Patriot missile battery.

Mr Stephen, from Scone, Perthshire, is understood to have been a member of the Black Watch recruitment team, and recently went out to Germany for training before being sent to Iraq.

He leaves behind a wife, Shirley. The couple are not thought to have any children.

At the regimental headquarters of the Black Watch regiment in Perth, a Saltire flag flew at half-mast.

There are currently about 850 soldiers in the regiment's regular army.

The regiment has actively recruited in the area in Fife, Tayside and Angus for almost 300 years, and news of the soldier's death hit the region hard.

A handful of locals visited the regiment's Perthshire headquarters at Balhousie Castle to pay their respects, some leaving small bouquets.