This week the most senior British officer to die in combat since the Falklands War was killed when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated under his armoured vehicle. Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe MBE, CO of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards died in Helmand province alongside 18-year-old Trooper Joshua Hammond of 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, bringing the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan to 171. At the moment that the deaths were announced, Mail writer Richard Pendlebury and photographer Jamie Wiseman were embedded in Helmand with British troops taking part in Operation Panther's Claw - the largest British ground offensive against the Afghan insurgents so far. Here, they paint a hauntingly graphic picture of the discomfort and privations endured by our troops in an increasingly bloody field of conflict.... [read full story]
