Two British soldiers have been killed in separate attacks in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defense confirmed on Sunday.

A soldier was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade attack and the other by a contact explosion. Both incidents took place during an operation in central Helmand on Saturday night.

The deaths brought the number of Britain's service personnel killed in action in Afghanistan to 144 since the start of operations in October 2001.

Britain's Skynews quoted Eric Tremblay, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, as saying: "We will continue to　work hard to defeat the vicious and indiscriminate improvised explosive device threat."

Source: Xinhua