UK soldier killed in Afghan blast

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the soldier, from 4th Battalion the Parachute Regiment, was killed as he dismounted his vehicle in the Upper Sangin Valley on Tuesday afternoon.

No one else was injured and next of kin have been informed.

The latest death takes to 108 the number of British service personnel who have lost their lives since the start of operations in Afghanistan in November 2001.

Four soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb tore through their vehicle last Tuesday, including Corporal Sarah Bryant, 26, of the Intelligence Corps, the first British woman to die on active service in Afghanistan.

The latest death came as the head of the armed forces warned that building up Afghanistan from its present "medieval status" will take decades.

The Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said that while the military would need to be in the country for "some years", the civilian reconstruction effort will take much longer.

In a speech to journalists at Westminster, he emphasised that the key to long-term success in the country was establishing effective civilian governance.

"This is a gradual process," he said.

"This is not something that could be done in one, two or three years because we are talking about a country that is essentially medieval, that has very little in the way of infrastructure, very little in the way of human resource, that has an endemic culture of corruption."