Three soldiers from the Black Watch were killed by a suicide bomber on Thursday in the first fatal attack on British troops since their fiercely debated deployment, at America’s request, to a new base south of Baghdad.
A civilian Iraqi interpreter employed by the regiment also died in the bombing at a vehicle checkpoint.
It was the first suicide attack against British troops since last year’s invasion but one senior defence source warned on Thursday night that it could be ”the first of many”.
The incident prompted backbench MPs to ask the government to reconsider the consequences of the deployment, and also prepare an exit strategy for the entire British military presence in Iraq.
Eight Black Watch soldiers were wounded in the blast, which occurred in the early afternoon, as the soldiers were at a checkpoint outside Camp Dogwood, about 32km south-west of Baghdad close to the river Euphrates. The troops also came under mortar fire.
Six of the injured soldiers were back with their regiment on Thursday night; the other two were expected to be released soon.
In a statement to the Commons, Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, told MPs there had been a ”serious incident”.
He said US forces had helped to provide ”urgent medical support” but declined to give further details.
At a press conference later he confirmed that the troops had been killed by a ”vehicle-borne improvised explosive device” in a suicide attack.
The Black Watch battlegroup of 850 soldiers have come under daily attack since they began digging in at their new base close to the so-called ”triangle of death” last week.
The suicide bombing followed an earlier incident when soldiers from the Scottish regiment were ambushed during a nightime patrol. Their two Warrior armoured fighting vehicles were hit by rocket-propelled grenades and a roadside bomb. The vehicles were recovered on Thursday and there were no casualties, according to defence sources.
However, the force of the attack rocked the massive 30-tonne combat vehicle, ripping the front four wheels off and leaving its three crew and complement of troops stranded in the combat zone, Padraic Flanagan, of the Daily Express, said in a pooled despatch.
As a second Warrior in the patrol sped to the disabled vehicle to rescue the troops in the pitch-black darkness, insurgents fired a mortar that exploded just feet away, he reported.
The Black Watch battlegroup was deployed to Camp Dogwood to free up United States marines previously based there, but now preparing for the expected ground assault on Fallujah, the rebel-held town 32km to the north-west.
British defence officials have privately been highly critical of US bombing tactics in Fallujah.
The Dogwood camp is on an important communications route and and one of the main tasks of the British soldiers is to act as ”ratcatchers” — capturing insurgents and foreign fighters fleeing Fallujah.
British commanders, believing that their troops are under increasing danger from well-organised insurgents, have decided to expand the base so that they now control both banks of the Euphrates.
Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, has repeatedly insisted to sceptical MPs that the decision to deploy British troops for the first time in an American-controlled area was an entirely operational one, agreed by the British chief of defence staff, General Sir Michael Walker.
Hoon told MPs on Tuesday that the US had made no ”formal political request” for British military help and even said his US counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, did not mention it to him at a Nato meeting a week before the deployment was announced.
However, defence sources say that in the end the decision was a political one.
The Guardian has learned that the Ministry of Defence earlier this year turned down a series of requests from the US for help on the grounds that the military operations they were asked to do would risk causing too many Iraqi civilian casualties.
Aware of unhappiness in the Black Watch, compounded by the government’s plan to merge the regiment into a single large Scottish one, Tony Blair has promised they will be home by Christmas.
Defence sources made clear on Thursday that the US would ask another British group — probably the Scots Guards — to take over the role of the Black Watch and that British soldiers will be deployed in the American-controlled area around Baghdad for months.
Seventy-four British soldiers have now died in Iraq, 33 of them in accidents. – Guardian Unlimited Â