A British soldier has been killed in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Taskforce Helmand spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Mackenzie said the soldier received a fatal gunshot wound while protecting a checkpoint yesterday. The incident in Nahr-e Saraj takes to 383 the number of British forces killed in Afghanistan in the last 10 years. It was the first fatality in Afghanistan for almost a month. On 19 September David Fairbrother, a 24-year-old Royal Marine, from Blackburn, Lancashire, who was shot dead after his patrol was ambushed.