Soldier killed in Basra to be named

The soldier was attacked while on a routine patrol in the Al Ashar district, east of central Basra at about 9.30am on Sunday.

He was dismounted from his vehicle and carrying out routine checks at the time of the shooting.

He was immediately evacuated to Basra Palace but subsequently died of his injuries. His family has been informed.

The latest death will raise concerns among senior officials at the Ministry of Defence, who are still deciding whether to send Prince Harry with his regiment, the Blues and Royals, when they deploy to the troubled country in the coming weeks.

British soldiers have faced one of their bloodiest months so far in Iraq, with 12 servicemen killed through a combination of small arms fire, a helicopter crash and increasingly powerful armour-piercing roadside bombs.

An attack on April 19 which killed British soldiers, Corporal Ben Leaning, 24, and Trooper Kristen Turton, 28, travelling in a Scimitar armoured vehicle was feared to be a dry run by insurgents for an assault on Prince Harry, who will be undertaking similar reconnaissance operations on his six-month tour.

Major David Gell, British military spokesman in Basra, said the death, while tragic, would not deter the troops in Basra from their goal of training up local police and military before the withdrawal.

He described the attack, on a multinational patrol of Bulldog vehicles, as "opportunist" and dismissed a suggestion that British forces were led into a trap by the police training team it was helping to move into Al Ashar.

In an interview with BBC News 24 on Sunday, Maj Gell said the soldier had to dismount from his Bulldog to carry out a "routine check" when he was shot. He said: "It was an opportunist small arms fire attack. They are not uncommon in Basra or indeed across the province as a whole so we are not looking at it as a new threat."