MoD latest on Afghanistan casualties

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.

This represents an increase from 7.4 to 14 deaths per 1,000 personnel years (the MRC's measure, which takes into account the number of soldiers deployed in Afghanistan over a calendar year). While Britain's fatality rate nearly doubled over the two periods, the US rate increased by only about a fifth.

In the last 10 weeks, 32 British troops have been killed, or 17 per 1,000 personnel years, according to the figures. The US figure was just 6.8.

Six deaths per 1,000 personnel years is considered the yardstick for "major combat", Prof Sheila Bird, from the MRC Biostatistics Unit, said today.

Four British troops died within 24 hours in four separate incidents in Helmand at the end of last week. While ministers imply they are confident that conditions will be right for Britain to start withdrawing troops next July, and that all combat troops will be out by the end of 2014, they have warned of a potentially high rate of casualties throughout this summer. Britain can expect an average of two fatalities a week this year, the MRC said.

Overall, more than half the foreign troops killed in Afghanistan in the past few years have been victims of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). But a very small proportion, about 4%, have been killed by suicide bombers, whose victims have been mainly Afghan civilians.

A total of 322 British forces personnel have been died in Afghanistan since 2001, according to the Ministry of Defence. More than 100 were killed last year, twice as many as in 2008. More than 50 have been killed so far this year.