Three British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in a black day for the Army, as its most senior officer warned that troops are fighting at the limit of their capacity.
Chief of General Staff General Sir Richard Dannatt said the Army can only just cope with the demands being placed on it by the Government, and warned that the UK had taken on "more than its share" of military work in Afghanistan.
One UK soldier died and a second was very seriously injured in a suicide bomb attack on a Nato military convoy in the Afghan capital Kabul, in which two other Nato troops suffered light injuries.
And a patrol near the southern Iraqi city of Basra was targeted by a roadside bomb and small arms fire, leaving two British soldiers dead and two more injured - one seriously.
Following news of the death in Afghanistan, Downing Street expressed Prime Minister Tony Blair's "sadness", adding that it underlined the "debt of gratitude" Britain owes to its Army and security services.
The fatality brings to 37 the number of UK personnel killed in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001, following the loss of 14 troops when an RAF Nimrod crashed near Kandahar on Saturday.
Some 117 British troops have now died in Iraq since the outbreak of hostilities in 2003.
Concerns over the demands being placed on troops were fuelled by an interview in which Gen Dannatt warned that the Army was being forced to "meet challenges on the hoof".
Speaking to The Guardian about the scale of Army commitments in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, Gen Dannatt warned: "We are running hot, certainly running hot. Can we cope? I pause. I say 'Just'."
The general - who took over the Army's top job last week and was speaking ahead of Saturday's crash - called for a "national debate" over whether the UK's annual £30 billion spending on defence was sufficient.
