Six UK soldiers killed in Afghanistan explosion

The blast is believed to have been caused either by a roadside bomb or a legacy mine from the Soviet era

 

Six UK soldiers have been killed in southern Afghanistan when their vehicle was hit by an explosion on Tuesday.

Five from the 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment and one from the 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment had been on patrol. Their families have been told.
It is the biggest single loss of UK life at one time in Afghanistan since a Nimrod crash killed 14 in 2006.
The number of British military deaths in Afghanistan since 2001 is now 404.
Prime Minister David Cameron said it was a "desperately sad day for our country".
"Every death and every injury reminds us of the human cost paid by our armed forces to keep our country safe," he said, at the start of Prime Ministers' Questions.
Lt Col Gordon Mackenzie, spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said the six soldiers were on a security patrol in a Warrior armoured fighting vehicle when it was caught in an explosion just over the Helmand border in Kandahar province.

They had been travelling as part of a two Warrior patrol when the vehicle was hit at a junction where a road travelling east from Gereshk meets another heading north to Lashkar Gah, the MoD said.

It is understood British forces believe the explosion was caused by either a roadside bomb laid by insurgents or a legacy mine, left over from the Soviet era.