By Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian
20 July 2010

The rate at which British troops in Afghanistan have been killed has nearly doubled in recent months and is proportionately far higher than their American counterparts, according to the latest figures released today by the Medical Research Council.

The numbers of British military deaths are well above the threshold for "major combat" operations and now match those suffered by Soviet troops fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The figures, compiled by the MRC Biostatistics Unit at Cambridge, show that the rate of British military fatalities is higher now than at any time since the unit started making records in 2006, the year of the first significant deployment of British troops in Afghanistan.

Tony Blair initially sent 3,300 soldiers to Helmand province in the spring of 2006 and there are now 10,000 UK troops in southern Afghanistan, including 500 special forces.

The MRC figures show that in 160 weeks up to May last year, 152 British troops were killed in Afghanistan. In the 60 weeks since then, 155 were killed.

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