More than one in four of the British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 have been victims of roadside bombs, mines or booby-traps, The Herald can reveal.
More alarmingly, eight of the 18 killed in explosions fighting the Taliban in the past six years died since January, marking a major shift in insurgent tactics from the costly firefights and ambushes of 2006 and 2007 in which they were outgunned and defeated.
The Ministry of Defence admits the 27% fatalities in Helmand due to explosive devices is now just 1% less than the tally for UK bomb deaths in Iraq since 2003.
In Afghanistan, 68 soldiers have been killed in action or died of wounds, all but two of them since 2006, while 136 service personnel have been killed by insurgents in Iraq.
Military sources say improvised explosive devices (IEDs) designed to penetrate armour and believed to have originated in Iran have been used in recent Afghan attacks.
They also claim Taliban tactics are mimicking those of Iraqi resistance groups, and concentrating on striking remotely at vehicle patrols and convoys rather than risking fighters in open battle.
"The contrast between now and 2006 is stark," one veteran officer said yesterday. "They probably sustained between 5000 and 6000 casualties in less than two years. Now they're boxing a bit more clever, knowing they can't take us on and win in a straight firefight. It was predictable they would copy the Iraqis and go for the booby-trap option."
Meanwhile, Afghan security forces surrounded a house in the capital Kabul yesterday and traded fire with Taliban gunmen before blowing up the building and killing two militants. A woman and child inside also died, officials said.
The two dead Taliban fighters were involved in a botched attempt to assassinate President Hamid Karzai on Sunday but they also received help from some government officials, said Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article