Another British soldier has died of his wounds in Afghanistan after being injured in a blast.
The Ministry of Defence said the serviceman from the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment died in Helmand province on Tuesday.
His death follows that of Sergeant Jonathan Mathews, 35, a married father-of-two from Edinburgh, who died from a single gunshot wound in Afghanistan on Monday.
The latest death brings the number of British troops killed on operations in Afghanistan since 2001 to 114. The soldier was part of a routine patrol that clashed with Taliban fighters just before 9am. During the encounter he was seriously injured in an explosion and was airlifted out to receive medical treatment. He died during the flight.
Lieutenant Colonel David Reynolds, an Army spokesman in Helmand, said: "Everyone in Task Force Helmand is affected by the death of a soldier, and the thoughts and sympathies of us all are with the family at this most difficult time."
Sergeant Mathews was from The Highlanders, 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, attached to the 1st Battalion the Royal Irish Regiment.
He was on foot patrol in Afghanistan, providing mentoring and training for the Afghan Army, and was helping to protect local police in the Marjah area, west of Lashkar Gah, when he was shot.
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