LONDON, Aug 15 (Reuters) - The number of British military deaths in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 rose to 200 on Saturday when a soldier wounded in an explosion died in a British hospital, the Defence Ministry said. The soldier, from the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh, was wounded in a roadside blast on Thursday in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan and died in a hospital in central England. "The death of the 200th British serviceman in Afghanistan is deeply tragic news," Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a statement. Britain has about 9,000 troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Violence has escalated in the country ahead of an election on Aug. 20. A suicide car bomb killed seven people on Saturday in the heart of the Afghan capital's most secure district. (Reporting by Peter Griffiths; editing by Andrew Dobbie)
Supporters of Afghan Presidential candidate Ramazan Bashardost hold election posters of Bashardost while gathering in front of a tent at a park in Herat, western Afghanistan, August 15, 2009. Afghanistan holds ...
