Two British soldiers were killed and two others wounded, by a roadside bomb in Basra last Sunday evening, the Ministry of Defence revealed yesterday.
The incident happened in Gizayza, north-west Basra, during a routine patrol in an armoured Land Rover, in support of operations aimed at disrupting the insurgency.
An MoD spokesman said: ‘The soldiers were from the Queen’s Dragoon Guards, part of the Basra City Battlegroup.
‘The next of kin of those killed have been informed.’
The latest fatalities bring the UK death toll in May to nine, after five were killed when a Lynx helicopter was downed by insurgents in Amara and two others died in a roadside bomb.
The attack came a day after British forces claimed to have seized what they described as their largest cache of weapons yet.
Troops from the Queen’s Royal Hussars said they had found enough material to make dozens of explosives. One device was disguised as roadside debris.
Other equipment seized included rocket-propelled grenades, a sniper rifle, a sub machine gun and military disguises.
At the weekend, puppet President Jalal Talabani urged his fellow puppets in Iraq’s new government to help improve security in the Basra area.
• Two British journalists working for CBS News, veteran cameraman Paul Douglas, 48, and soundman James Brolan, 42, were killed yesterday in Baghdad when the US 4th Brigade Combat Team in which they were embedded was hit by a roadside bomb. Correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, was seriously injured.
