Marine killed in ambush
Danger ... British soldiers in southern Afghanistan have been involved in battles with the Taliban
By TOM NEWTON DUNN
Defence Editor
January 16, 2007
A ROYAL Marine was killed yesterday during a ferocious Taliban ambush in the southern Afghan badlands.
The commando’s patrol was attacked from a number of positions as it crept up on an enemy base at dawn.
He is the second Marine to die in Afghanistan in three days and the 41st British serviceman to perish since the NATO security mission was launched in the south nine months ago.
Taliban fighters hiding in houses fired Chinese 107mm rockets and 82mm mortars at the troops, which included a Royal Engineers team.
The operation was part of a push into rebel sanctuaries close to the Pakistan border in Helmand province. Several other soldiers were also injured in the shoot-out.
The firefight was so intense that another Marine got separated from the patrol and was declared missing in action. After a frantic search of the area south of Garmsir, he was located and rescued.
Jets were called in to blitz the enemy positions from the air with 2,000lb bombs, finally silencing them.
The dead Marine — from 45 Commando, based in Arbroath — will be named today. On Saturday, 21-year-old Marine Thomas Curry, from Wanstead, East London, was killed while charging down Taliban positions.
Yesterday his fiancée Carla, 23, revealed he had proposed to her over the phone on Christmas Day. They planned to break the news on his next leave at a joint celebration of his 21st, his mother’s 50th and his sister’s 18th birthdays.
Carla said: “I last spoke to him on the phone on Thursday. He was so happy.”
Tom’s dad Martin said: “Being at the front was Tom to a T — that’s how he lived. He was a hero to his family, friends and now his comrades. He loved being a Marine.”
thesun.co.uk
Danger ... British soldiers in southern Afghanistan have been involved in battles with the Taliban
Defence Editor
January 16, 2007
A ROYAL Marine was killed yesterday during a ferocious Taliban ambush in the southern Afghan badlands.
The commando’s patrol was attacked from a number of positions as it crept up on an enemy base at dawn.
He is the second Marine to die in Afghanistan in three days and the 41st British serviceman to perish since the NATO security mission was launched in the south nine months ago.
Taliban fighters hiding in houses fired Chinese 107mm rockets and 82mm mortars at the troops, which included a Royal Engineers team.
The operation was part of a push into rebel sanctuaries close to the Pakistan border in Helmand province. Several other soldiers were also injured in the shoot-out.
The firefight was so intense that another Marine got separated from the patrol and was declared missing in action. After a frantic search of the area south of Garmsir, he was located and rescued.
Jets were called in to blitz the enemy positions from the air with 2,000lb bombs, finally silencing them.
The dead Marine — from 45 Commando, based in Arbroath — will be named today. On Saturday, 21-year-old Marine Thomas Curry, from Wanstead, East London, was killed while charging down Taliban positions.
Yesterday his fiancée Carla, 23, revealed he had proposed to her over the phone on Christmas Day. They planned to break the news on his next leave at a joint celebration of his 21st, his mother’s 50th and his sister’s 18th birthdays.
Carla said: “I last spoke to him on the phone on Thursday. He was so happy.”
Tom’s dad Martin said: “Being at the front was Tom to a T — that’s how he lived. He was a hero to his family, friends and now his comrades. He loved being a Marine.”
thesun.co.uk