A roadside bomb killed four British soldiers and a civilian interpreter in Iraq's southern city of Basra on Thursday, the British military said.

Four British soldiers and an interpreter were killed and another British soldier was seriously wounded when their patrol struck a roadside bomb and was hit by small-arms fire at about 2 a. m. (2300 GMT Wednesday) in the Hayaniyah district west of Basra, 550 km southeast of Baghdad, said the military.

It is the third British fatality this month, which brought to six the number of British soldiers killed in Iraq a week.

Britain, the U.S. staunchest ally in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, stations the second largest number of troops, following the United States, in the battered country.

Currently, Britain has some 7,100 troops in southern Iraq, most in the Basra area and about 800 in Maysan province. Since 2003, there are 134 British soldiers killed in Iraq.

On February, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced the withdrawal of 1,600 British troops from Iraq in the coming few months.

Source: Xinhua