Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Five U.K. soldiers were killed yesterday in a shooting at an Afghan police base in southern Helmand province, making this the deadliest year for British troops in more than two decades.

The soldiers are believed to have been shot by a “rogue” Afghan policeman who opened fire in a police compound in the Nad-e’Ali district, Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield, a military spokesman, told Sky News.

The gunman and a possible accomplice escaped and a search is under way, Wakefield said. Three of the soldiers were from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement. Their families have been informed, it added.

A total of 92 U.K. service personnel, including the five killed in the compound, have died in Afghanistan so far this year. In the 1982 Falklands war 255 servicemen died.

The deaths will add to pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to justify the presence of the U.K. force in the country at a time when polls show a majority of Britons want their troops to return home. Brown has argued that bringing stability to Afghanistan and rooting out radical Islamists will help protect the U.K. from terrorism.

“The death of five brave soldiers in a single incident is a terrible loss,” the prime minister said in an e-mailed statement. “I pay tribute to their courage, skill and determination. They will not be forgotten.”

Lack of Helicopters

Opposition Conservatives and former military officials accuse Brown of failing to provide enough helicopters and vehicles to defeat the Taliban, the Islamist movement in Afghanistan that sheltered al-Qaeda until the regime was ousted by U.S.-led forces after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Writing in the Guardian newspaper today, Kim Howells, who was minister with responsibility for Afghanistan until 2008 and now chairs the House of Commons Intelligence and Security committee, said the mission is failing. He said Britain should withdraw its forces from Helmand and focus on domestic spying.

“It would be better to bring home the great majority of our fighting men and women and concentrate on using the money saved to secure our own borders, gather intelligence on terrorist activities inside Britain, expand our intelligence operations abroad, co-operate with foreign intelligence services, and counter the propaganda of those who encourage terrorism,” said Howells, a lawmaker in the ruling Labour Party who once backed the war.

Six soldiers and two Afghan policemen were wounded in the incident yesterday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said in an e-mailed statement.

Full Investigation

General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander in Afghanistan, said in the statement that he has spoken to Afghanistan’s interior minister, Haneef Atmar, who assured him there would be a full and “transparent” investigation.

“There is a deep sense of loss,” McChrystal said. “We will not let this event deter our resolve to build a partnership with the Afghan National Security Forces to provide for Afghanistan’s future.”

The motive of the attacker is unclear, NATO said. The British Broadcasting Corp cited two conflicting reports as saying the assailant may have been involved in a dispute with his commander and that he may have had links to the Taliban.

The soldiers were living and working in the compound as part of an assignment to train Afghan national police officers, Wakefield said. The attack wasn’t due to a breakdown or fight between Afghan and U.K. soldiers, he said.

Training Police

Training Afghan police and soldiers is key to NATO’s strategy of tackling the Taliban-led insurgency. The U.K. still supports that policy, Brown said today.

“We want to work with them, we want to train them and we want to mentor them. It is something we want to continue and strengthen in the months to come,” the prime minister said in Parliament. “The measure of success in Afghanistan will be that British forces can come home because Afghan forces can deal with the challenges themselves.”

In total, 229 U.K. service personnel have died in Afghanistan since 2001, including those who died in the compound. Britain has about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, the second biggest contingent after the U.S.

Yesterday’s deaths are the most for U.K. forces in a single incident since July, when five soldiers died in bombings in Sangin, a town in Helmand.

‘Difficult Year’

“It continues to be a difficult year in Afghanistan for our brave people who are operating in the most challenging area of the country,” Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth said in an e- mailed statement. “We owe it to them to show the resolve that they exhibit every day.”

The shooting came a day after Hamid Karzai was declared Afghanistan’s president for a second term after election challenger Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, dropped out of a runoff vote that was scheduled for Nov. 7. The Aug. 20 first round was marred by fraud.

The previous worst year for fatalities since the Falklands was in 2007 when 89 troops died, 47 of them in Iraq and 42 in Afghanistan.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Lysaght in London at blysaght@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: November 4, 2009 08:07 EST