Afghanistan: 100th soldier to die is named
Updated on 08 December 2009
The 100th British soldier to die in Afghanistan this year has been named as Lance Corporal Adam Drane of the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment. Carl Dinnen reports.
Colleagues and family paid tributes paid to the 23-year-old, who was described as a "popular, quiet and intelligent soldier". He died as a result of small arms fire on patrol in the Nad-e-Ali area of central Helmand.
In a statement this evening his parents said: "We wish to express our tremendous pride in Adams achievements: as a son, a brother, and future husband. We wish also to honour his chosen profession, which taught him the true meaning of courage and self-sacrifice."
In the hours before he was named, funerals took place for two other soldiers killed in Afghanistan while the body of another was repatriated.
The body of the ninety-ninth soldier to die in Afghanistan this year was flown home today. Acting Sergeant John Amer of the Coldstream Guards was killed trying to save a wounded colleague.
More than three quarters of the hundred British dead were killed by Improvised Explosive Devices, Coporal Loren Marlton-Thomas whose funeral was held in Lytham in Lancashire today was killed trying to defuse one.
And at Wimborne Minster in Dorset mourners gathered to remember Rifleman Philip Allen from the 2nd Battalion the Rifles. He was killed by an IED the day before Remembrance Day.
For all the understandable focus on those who have paid with their lives concern is growing at the way support for the Afghan mission is being eroded; the head of the army keen to point out that there have also been successes.
The Afghan campaign is approaching a turning point. As NATO forces prepare to surge they must maintain support for the mission at home.
