Taliban tunnelled for THREE WEEKS to plant huge IED that killed three British soldiers in 'bomb-proof' armoured vehicle

• .Terrorists planted 450lb bomb under key route through Helmand in April
• .Corporal William Thomas Savage, Fusilier Samuel Flint and Private Robert Murray Hetherington were killed
• .Soldiers were travelling in armoured vehicle brought in to protect troops
• .Massive blast hurled 23-ton Mastiff into air, flipping it on to its roof
• .It was first time troops have died in a Mastiff which was introduced in 2009

By MARTIN ROBINSON

Three British soldiers were killed by a massive bomb in Afghanistan that the Taliban spent three weeks planting below a road, it emerged today.

Terrorists dug a tunnel under a key route through Helmand Province and then pulled a wire to detonate the 450lb weapon with devastating results as an Army vehicle passed over it last April.

The bomb killed Corporal William Savage, 30, Fusilier Samuel Flint, 21, and Private Robert Hetherington, 25, the first troops to die travelling in the Army’s heavily-armoured 23-ton Mastiff vehicles. 

Six other soldiers were injured by the Taliban attack.

Victims: Corporal William Thomas Savage, left, and Fusiler Samuel Flint right, both served in the Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion, The Royal Regiment Of Scotland (2 Scots), and were killed by a 450lb bomb in April

Mastiff personnel carriers had withstood hundreds of attacks since they were brought in specifically to combat the threat from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in 2007.

 

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Tragedy: The Taliban also took the life of Private Robert Murray Hetherington, from the 7th Battalion The Royal Regiment Of Scotland (7 Scots)

Military sources said at the time that the blast did not appear to have penetrated the £1million Mastiff’s armour. 

Instead, the casualties were apparently caused by the vehicle being blown into the air and the force of the impact when it landed and rolled on to its roof.

'It's an arms race, they build bigger bombs, we build better vehicles and so on. Bit there can always be a bigger bomb,' a military source told The Sun today.

Cpl Savage – nicknamed Sav – who was born in Irvine, Scotland, was described as a ‘shining example of a soldier and a rising star’. His wife Lyndsey said: ‘I am completely devastated but extremely proud of Sav. I have lost the love of my life.’

Fusilier Flint, from Blackpool, was described as a ‘vastly impressive soldier’. His family said they were ‘completely devastated’.

Pte Hetherington had represented Scotland at lacrosse and was said to have ‘epitomised everything that is excellent about the reserve forces’.

The men and their six comrades were on a routine patrol in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province when they were attacked. Their deaths took the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan to 444.

Targeted: Three British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan when their Mastiff armoured vehicle which was introduced to protect troops was devastated by a huge roadside bomb (file picture)

At the time David Cameron confirmed he wanted defence chiefs to look into whether the right equipment was being used to cope with such attacks.

He said: ‘We have done an enormous amount to improve the quality and quantity of protective vehicles that our soldiers use out in Afghanistan and, as I understand, it had a pretty good record of withstanding blasts from IEDs. 

'I’m sure we’ll want to look at that carefully and put in place everything we can to make sure that our brave men and women have the best protective equipment they have.

‘The troops have said to me they were pretty satisfied with what they had, but we must always look at this.’ 

The Prime Minister added that the UK had paid a ‘very high price’ for the work to stabilise Afghanistan.

Scene: The soldiers were on a routine patrol in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand Province

General Lord Dannatt, the former head of the Army, said: ‘The Taliban have found a way of countering the protective qualities of the Mastiff. It would seem that this was an extremely large bomb that was so powerful it was able to cause fatalities within the vehicle itself.’

The attack came three days after the Taliban launched its ‘spring offensive’ against coalition forces. The Taliban said they would infiltrate ‘enemy ranks’ to conduct ‘insider attacks’ and target military and diplomatic sites with suicide bombers.

The IED, which may have been dug into the tarred road surface when it softened during the winter, could have been detonated remotely. The Mastiff carries electronic counter-measures to jam remote-controlled IEDs, and investigators will check for links between the massive blast and Iran which is suspected of providing the Taliban with bomb training as well as equipment and techniques to avoid jamming devices.