British Soldiers

Deo Man Limbu sat in a veterans hall lined with pictures of old soldiers and reflected on his years of service, his battles and his dreams. The retired major with Britain's legendary Gurkhas faced the Argentines in the 1982 Falklands War, when being a member of one of the world's most feared fighting forces had its advantages. Well before hostilities started, British military planners had encouraged photographs of Gurkhas sharpening their fearsome curved knives — no one seemed to ask why you'd bring a knife to a gunfight — and media stories about their fighting prowess.

Deo Man Limbu sat in a veterans hall lined with pictures of old soldiers and reflected on his years of service, his battles and his dreams. The retired major with Britain's legendary Gurkhas faced the Argentines in the 1982 Falklands War, when being a member of one of the world's most feared fighting forces had its advantages. Well before hostilities started, British military planners had encouraged photographs of Gurkhas sharpening their fearsome curved knives — no one seemed to ask why you'd bring a knife to a gunfight — and media stories about their fighting prowess.

Five British soldiers were shot to death in an attack in the volatile south that British officials attributed to a "rogue" Afghan policeman. The shooting Tuesday in the Nad-e-Ali district of Helmand province raised concerns about the possible infiltration of Afghan troops by militants. The province is a center of the Taliban insurgency and was the focus of a major U.S. offensive over the summer. A British Defense Ministry spokesman said the soldiers, three from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police, were part of a team mentoring the Afghan National Police, an assignment that is a key part of the strategy to stabilize Afghanistan.

When their convoy was ambushed by Taliban snipers and a fellow Marine was wounded, Cpl. Larry Harris Jr. did not hesitate. He put the wounded Marine over his shoulders and began to carry him to safety. He had gone only a short distance when he stepped on a buried roadside bomb. Harris was killed instantly but the other Marine survived. Harris had carried him far enough to be safely out of range of enemy gunfire. On Friday, Harris and 10 other Marines, two Navy corpsmen and a British soldier ?

A rebel faction in Sierra Leone released five British soldiers held captive in the country's jungle interior since last week, officials said. All were in "very good condition," said Lt. Cmdr. Tony Cramp, a British forces spokesman. Six others were still believed held by the small rebel group, known as the West Side Boys, and their status was not immediately clear. Cramp declined to reveal details of where and how the five were released or whether a deal had been struck with the captors.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Sunday that a high-level investigation was underway into photographs that apparently showed British soldiers abusing an Iraqi detainee. But sources close to the regiment concerned raised doubts over the images' authenticity. The Daily Mirror newspaper published five black-and-white photographs Saturday of British troops who it said were kicking, stomping and urinating on a hooded Iraqi in Basra, Iraq.

AFGHANISTAN Eighteen British soldiers serving as medical personnel at Bagram air base in Afghanistan have contracted a contagious but unidentified illness, and 350 people have been quarantined, Brig. Roger Lane said. The Pentagon said no U.S. or other coalition personnel are known to have the disease, which causes fever, diarrhea and vomiting. Two of the British soldiers were so ill that they were taken out of the country for treatment.

Two British soldiers were jailed for life Friday for the murder of a Roman Catholic civilian in Northern Ireland last year. The soldiers, a 21-year-old mechanic and a 23-year-old member of the mainly Protestant Ulster Defense Regiment, were also given 14-year sentences for illegal possession of a pistol and ammunition used to commit the murder.

Taliban rebels firing rocket-propelled grenades killed three British soldiers, the first coalition fatalities since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization took command of insurgency-racked southern Afghanistan this week. The ambush in Helmand province also seriously wounded a fourth British soldier and was the deadliest single incident suffered by the British since they deployed in late 2001 to help topple the hard-line Taliban regime.

A group of British soldiers reported missing in this war-torn West African country has been taken hostage by renegade Sierra Leonean soldiers, diplomatic and military sources said Saturday. British forces lost contact with the 11 soldiers Friday around the towns of Masiaka and Forudugu, about 45 miles east of the capital, Freetown, force commander Brig. Gordon Hughes said in a statement.

British authorities are investigating 33 allegations of abuse, including rape, torture and assault, by British soldiers who served in Iraq, the Ministry of Defense said Saturday. One claimant says he was raped by two British soldiers; another claims he was sexually humiliated by male and female personnel. Others allege they were stripped naked and photographed in the same way as detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, where abuses of prisoners by American troops helped fuel anti-U.

Let down by his own bad handwriting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown found himself apologizing yet again Tuesday to a woman whose name he misspelled in a condolence letter over the death of her son in Afghanistan. The epistolary faux pas and the ensuing uproar have nearly swamped the national debate here over the Afghanistan conflict since news of Brown's mistake emerged Monday. Questioned repeatedly about it at a news conference Tuesday, the prime minister said he was sorry for any offense caused to the grieving mother but also used the occasion to restate the importance of Britain's commitment to a war that seems to be losing public support by the day. Hours after Brown spoke, the bodies of six more soldiers killed in Afghanistan arrived back on British soil, including five men who were shot last week by a rogue Afghan police officer.

Five British soldiers were shot to death in an attack in the volatile south that British officials attributed to a "rogue" Afghan policeman. The shooting Tuesday in the Nad-e-Ali district of Helmand province raised concerns about the possible infiltration of Afghan troops by militants. The province is a center of the Taliban insurgency and was the focus of a major U.S. offensive over the summer. A British Defense Ministry spokesman said the soldiers, three from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police, were part of a team mentoring the Afghan National Police, an assignment that is a key part of the strategy to stabilize Afghanistan.

The hearses roll through with grim regularity now, bearing the heavy weight of flag-shrouded caskets and a nation's accumulating grief. When the jet-black cars reach Wootton Bassett's modest monument honoring the dead of wars past, the cortege stops. Bystanders bow their heads. A church bell tolls into the aching stillness. This small town, inhabited since Saxon times, is now the epicenter of national mourning over the fallen of a 21st century war. Over the weekend, the number of British service personnel killed in Afghanistan passed 200, a tally that has risen sharply over the last several months amid intensified fighting.

Bombs killed a dozen people, including a British soldier and five children, in southern Afghanistan, authorities said. The five children were among 11 people who died when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in the Spin Boldak district of southern Kandahar province near the border with Pakistan, according to police Gen. Saifullah Hakim. The victims, all members of an extended family, were traveling to a local Muslim shrine for Friday prayer services, Hakim said. In London, the British Defense Ministry said a British soldier was killed Thursday when a bomb exploded near a foot patrol in Helmand province.

Irish nationalist gangs hurled gasoline bombs at police after three alleged IRA dissidents were arrested on suspicion of killing two British soldiers in an attack apparently aimed at triggering wider violence in Northern Ireland. Police arrested Colin Duffy, 41, the best-known Irish republican in Lurgan, a religiously divided town southwest of Belfast, and two other suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents in the mainly Roman Catholic village of Bellaghy in the attack last weekend.

Two British soldiers were shot dead Thursday while on foot patrol in southern Afghanistan, bringing the British military death toll in the country since 2001 to 102, the Defense Ministry said. Three other soldiers in the same regiment were killed Sunday in a suicide attack. The latest casualties came as donors meeting in Paris pledged about $20 billion in aid to Afghanistan but said it must do far more to fight corruption. The lion's share of the assistance, $10.