UK Names Soldiers Killed In Basra Roadside Bomb

Britain on Friday named four soldiers killed in a roadside bomb blast that destroyed their Warrior armoured vehicle in Basra.

Britain on Friday named four soldiers killed in a roadside bomb blast that destroyed their Warrior armoured vehicle in the Iraqi city of Basra.

They were named as Second Lieutenant Joanna Yorke Dyer, Corporal Kris O'Neill, Private Eleanor Dlugsoz and Kingsman Adam James Smith.

A civilian interpreter was also killed and a fifth soldier seriously injured following an explosion underneath their vehicle as they returned from an operation on Thursday.

Police in Basra on Friday indicated that the explosion was caused by a new type of bomb.

"We found two bombs ... that were similar to the bomb that exploded targeting the British troops," Major General Mohammed Moussawi told Reuters.

"These are new bombs that haven't been used and do not have a precedent in southern Iraq."

The bomb blast left a crater several metres across and a metre deep in the road.

U.S. and British forces have accused neighbouring Shi'ite Iran of supplying Shi'ite militias with "explosively formed penetrators" (EFPs), a particularly deadly type of explosive that can destroy a main battle tank.

These explosives are normally placed on the side of the road and fire a metal projectile embedded in the device into the target at high speed.

But a Western explosives expert in Iraq said it appeared from photographs of the crater that the blast had been caused by a commercial landmine buried in the road, not by an EFP.

The deaths brought to six the number of British soldiers killed in Iraq this week, making it one of the deadliest for British forces since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.