'Hurt Locker' Brit Dies Disarming Afghan Bomb

NATO preparing massive assault on Taliban stronghold
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 11, 2010 4:18 AM CST
'Hurt Locker' Brit Dies Disarming Afghan Bomb
Warrant Officer Class 2 David Markland leaves a wife and two children. At 36, he was a 20-year veteran of the British Army.   (Ministry of Defense)

A British soldier with the kind of chillingly dangerous job featured in the movie Hurt Locker has been killed disarming a roadside bomb to clear a route for a new Afghan offensive. Warrant Officer David Markland, 36, had survived 8 stints in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Times of London reports. The commanding officer of his counter-IED task force called him "a talismanic figure whose mere presence instilled confidence in everyone."


Markland, a married father of two, was a "bear of a man" whose team "would have followed him to the ends of the Earth, such is the respect and trust he inspired," said the officer. He and his crew were clearing the way for NATO's upcoming Operation Moshtarak, which will involve some 15,000 American, British, and Afghan troops. NATO commanders warn that many more casualties are likely once the offensive takes on one of the Taliban's last strongholds.
(More British Army stories.)

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