Investigation into British deaths gets underway

A top level investigation was under way today after six British soldiers were killed and eight injured in two separate attacks in Iraq – the heaviest British combat casualties since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Military and political leaders were playing down fears that the attack was a sign of growing resistance to the US and British forces in Iraq.

Britain's Defence minister Adam Ingram warned that the incidents may lead to UK troops returning to the use of hard helmets and more defensive tactics.

British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told the Commons that the bodies of the six Royal Military police were recovered yesterday from the town of Al Majar Al Kabir where they were involved training local police.

There were few details about the circumstances of the deaths, but Mr Hoon said local information suggested they may have been involved in an incident at the police station in Al Majar al Kabir, 15 miles south of the town of Al Amarah in the province of Maysan, which borders Iran.

“We are obviously investigating the situation as a matter of urgency,” he said.

Their bodies were recovered around midday Irish time.

Four-and-a-half hours earlier troops from the 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment patrolling the town came under attack from rocket propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and rifle fire from “a large number of Iraqi gunmen”.

A quick reaction force, including a troop of Scimitar armoured vehicles and a Chinook helicopter, called in to assist them also came under fire.

Seven men in the helicopter and one man on the ground were injured in the fighting.

The injured were initially taken to the 202 Field Hospital near the city of Basra. The two most seriously wounded were transferred to the US field hospital in Kuwait for specialist treatment.

In Washington, Pentagon officials said insurgents had ratcheted up 25 attacks on US forces, over a 24-hour period.

US forces, scattered throughout Iraq and controlling the capital Baghdad, have lost 18 soldiers to enemy attacks since May 1, when President George W Bush declared that major combat was over.

Unlike the Americans, the British have encountered little in the way of resistance since the fall of Baghdad though senior British commanders have warned that they expected rogue guerrilla elements to continue to operate.