Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Woman soldier among Afghan dead

This is very worrying and very sad news.

With 9 UK soldiers killed in the past 10 days this is one of the worst periods of the current Afghanistan operation and doubly sad to hear that one of the dead was the first female UK soldier to die in Afghanistan.

UPDATE: I now hear that the three men who died were from 23rd Special Air Service Regiment, which is one of two Territorial Army SAS units. All four soldiers are expected to be named on Thursday after the Ministry of Defence changed its policy about keeping the names of special forces fatalities secret.

The British army spokesman at Camp Bastion, Lt Col Robin Matthews, said:
While the past week or so has indeed been bruising, and no-one would deny that, we must remain fixed on what the strategic imperative is here. That is delivering a better life, and progress, to the Afghan people.All of us have admiration for the work that both male and female British soldiers are doing here and the courage they are showing, acknowledging the risks that are apparent in this particular part of Afghanistan. He said recent events had led soldiers to "reflect on the nature of business here", but they could see the tangible results of their work and were willing to take risks.
My thoughts are with the families and friends of the soldiers who died and the injured soldier.


BBC NEWS | UK | Woman soldier among Afghan dead

2 comments:

Womble said...

Whilst I agree that it is, indeed, very sad that more of our soliders have been killed, I do not think it is any more sad that one of them is a woman. All of the deaths are equally sad in my mind, and gender doesn't enter into it.

My sincere condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the deceased.

Fitaloon said...

I'm just old fashioned on this I hate to see women actually on the front-line. But true all of the deaths are equally sad, its just that some seem to make a bigger impact on me.