Two British soldiers have been killed in a friendly fire incident on the outskirts of Basra, the defence ministry said tonight.
"It is with regret that I have to announce the death of two soldiers from the Queen's Royal Lancers operating a Challenger II main battle tank," a defence ministry spokesman said.
"The soldiers were killed last night [Monday] in a friendly fire incident from another British Challenger during a period of multiple engagements with Iraqi enemy forces on the outskirts of Basra," he said.
The deaths bring the number of British servicemen killed by "friendly fire" to four in the last three days.
On Sunday two RAF servicemen were killed when their Tornado GR4 was downed by a US Patriot missile battery near the Kuwaiti border.
AFP