• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Three British deaths in Sangin

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Dec 24, IRNA -- The situation in Sangin region of central Helmand, is “not as bleak as it might first appear,” the Ministry of Defence (MoD) insisted Thursday after announcing the death of a third British soldier in the area in as many days.

Another two British soldiers were also killed following a suicide improvised explosive device blast on a route into central Sangin last week.

MoD spokesman Major General Gordon Messenger said it is “no secret that Sangin is one of the most challenging areas in which British forces currently operate.”

“Sangin was a known tension point when we arrived in Helmand in 2006 and has remained a keenly contested district between us and the Taleban in the intervening years,” Messenger said.

“It sits in a crucible transit location for the insurgency and has for generations been the seat of significant destabilising inter-tribal frictions in Afghan society. It is also the centre of a major narcotics producing area,” he said.

Two of the latest deaths are thought to have been the result of ‘friendly fire,’ while the third, killed in a bomb blast, was a member of Britain’s ‘special forces,’ according to the BBC.

The killings come at the end of a record year for British casualties in Afghanistan, suffering 106 fatalities, more than double the 51 killed in 2008. The number represents 40 per cent of the total 243 deaths suffered in the eight-year war.

“I won’t pretend it is easy, especially in Sangin,” Messenger said. “There are still major sectors of the population in that district that remain unconvinced” in siding with the Afghan government, he said in an article in the Daily Telegraph.

“The longer we demonstrate our resolve, and the more commitment we display, the more readily the population will turn their backs on the illicit extremes of their past, and the less likely will be the spectre of a Taleban dominated region prone to harbouring international acts of terrorism,” he said.

“It is against this backdrop that the tragic circumstances of the last four days, and indeed our losses over the course of our entire Afghan commitment, should be viewed,” the major general said.

2220**345**1432

End News / IRNA / News Code 861265