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In one black day, four bodies arrive home and two more buried
Nicholas Cecil, Deputy Political Editor28 Jul 2009
Hundreds of mourners gathered today as the bodies of four soldiers killed in Afghanistan were flown home - and funerals took place for two of their fallen comrades.
Ceremonies were held in Afghanistan and Britain to remember the six servicemen who are among the 22 fatalities suffered by the Army in its bloodiest month in the eight-year conflict against the Taliban.
A C-17 military aircraft carrying the four bodies landed at RAF Lyneham, Wiltshire, shortly after 11am, where relatives attended a private memorial service.
The soldiers were among 191 UK personnel killed in the conflict since 2001. They are bomb disposal expert Captain Daniel Shepherd, 28, Rifleman Aminiasi Toge, 26, Corporal Joseph Etchells, 22, and Guardsman Christopher King, 20. They died in separate incidents in Helmand, southern Afghanistan.
The funeral of Captain Ben Babington-Browne, 27, of 22 Engineer Regiment, who was killed in a helicopter crash in the southern Zabul province of Afghanistan on 6 July, took place in Maidstone this morning.
Hundreds gathered at All Saints Church. Lt-Col Andrew Noble, commanding officer of 22 Engineer Regiment, read The Ode of Remembrance from the poem For the Fallen featuring the immortal line: "We will remember them."
The service ended with God Save the Queen before Capt Babington-Browne's coffin was taken from church and 10 soldiers fired three shots in tribute.
At the service, led by the Rev Christopher Morgan-Jones and Padre Steve Whiting, were Capt Babington-Browne's mother Nina and brother Daniel who had earlier told how they were heartbroken by his untimely death.
The funeral of Lance Corporal David Dennis, of the Light Dragoons, killed by an explosion in Afghanistan on 4 July, was taking place this afternoon in Llanelli.
The ceremonies came the day after Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that the offensive phase of Panther's Claw had been completed. Military chiefs stressed the operation had been a success and British troops are now digging in to hold the Babaji area, which the Taliban is expected to try to retake.
With concerns growing that Britain and other Allied forces could become bogged down in Afghanistan for many more years, if not decades, Foreign Secretary David Miliband is pushing for the Kabul government to step up talks with more moderate elements of the Taliban to agree a political solution to the conflict.
A survey has found just over half the population believe that British troops should leave Afghanistan.
More than half, 58 per cent, said the Taliban could not be defeated militarily, with only 31 per cent saying they could. Some 52 per cent said troops should be withdrawn immediately, with 43 per cent disagreeing, according to the ComRes poll for The Independent.
