(Reuters) - Four British troops were killed and three seriously wounded in an attack on a patrol boat in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Sunday, the Ministry of Defence in London said, according to Reuters. Their boat was attacked on the Shatt al Arab river, the ministry said in a statement. The routine patrol was caught in an explosion caused by an improvised bomb, a spokesman said. "The patrol was subject to an improvised explosive device," the ministry spokesman said. Captain Tane Dunlop, the Multi-National forces spokesman in south Iraq, told the BBC: "The use of improvised explosive devices is very common in Iraq. It is slightly unusual in that this time it was targeting a boat." Britain has some 7,000 troops in southern Iraq, which has generally been calmer than the centre and north of the country, and 125 British armed forces personnel have died since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
