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WOOTTON BASSETT, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 05, 2009: Christina Schmid, the wife of Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, watches as the hearse carrying his body passes mourners lining the High Street of Wootton Bassett on November 5 2009 in, Wiltshire, England.

The 30-year-old British soldier from the Royal Logistic Corps Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, who was one week away from the end of his six-month tour, was killed trying to defuse a bomb in Helmand province Afghanistan and was repatriated to nearby RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire earlier today. The repatriation comes on the day when the Ministry of Defence released the names of the five British soldiers killed in an attack by a rogue Afghan police officer in what has become one of the bloodiest incidents for British troops in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001. A total of 92 UK servicemen have now been killed this year alone – the highest annual figure since the Falklands War in 1982 – and the deaths take the number of UK troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 229. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

In the same week that Fort Hood in the US has suffered soldier to soldier violence, in Afghanistan, five British soldiers were killed by an Afghan colleague as they sat making tea on Tuesday. They were shot dead inside a secure check point after they had removed their protective armour. Six others are reportedly seriously wounded, as well as two Afghans.

The Afghan officer then fled the scene and British military officers say he is likely to have been smuggled out of the area along well established drug smuggling routes used by the Taliban.

The Ministry of Defence names the five servicemen killed in Afghanistan on Tuesday 3 November 2009.

The soldiers died as a result of gunshot wounds sustained in an attack at a police checkpoint in the Nad e-Ali district of Helmand province.

The five personnel are:
Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards
Sergeant Matthew Telford, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards
Guardsman James Major, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards
Acting Corporal Steven Boote, Royal Military Police
Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith, Royal Military Police

Paying tribute to the five men, Secretary of State for Defence, Bob Ainsworth, said:

“I was so very sorry to hear of the deaths of these five brave soldiers, killed in the course of their duties in Afghanistan. That they were killed by one of those they were working alongside is a particular tragedy.

“The memory of WO1 Darren Chant, Sgt Matthew Telford, Cpl Nicholas Webster-Smith, Cpl Steven Boote and Guardsman James Major will live on. They were men of courage who died building security in Afghanistan and protecting people in the UK from terrorism.

“My deepest sympathies and condolences lie with their grieving families, friends, and all those who served alongside them who will feel the pain of loss most intensely. They are in all our thoughts.”