A soldier from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards was shot early on Thursday during the British-led operation taking the fight to the Taliban in the Upper Gereshk Valley area of Helmand.

On Wednesday Lance Corporal Alex Hawkins, of the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, was killed in an explosion which hit his vehicle as he returned from a routine patrol at Sangin, elsewhere in the province. Two others were injured. He was named by the Ministry of Defence.

A trained sniper, the 22-year-old from East Dereham, Norfolk, was described by his Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Carver, as "one of the most promising soldiers of his generation".

The deaths, which take the number of British forces personnel killed in Afghanistan since November 2001 to 66, came as the head of the UK's armed forces, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, called on other countries to send more troops.

The latest soldier to be killed was taking part in the British-led Operation codenamed "Chakush" - or Hammer - to extend the writ of the government of Afghan president Hamid Karzai fully into the area of the Upper Gereshk Valley.

A total of 2,000 Nato and Afghan forces have been taking part in the operation, which was launched in the early hours of Tuesday but only revealed on Thursday, in the area between Heyderabad and Mirmandab, north east of Gereshk.

Key to the early part of the push was establishing a bridge over the Nahr-e-Seraj canal.

It was close to the same canal that the Grenadier Guard was shot. His company had secured a bridge over the canal and were pushing west when they came under fire from the Taliban at about 6am local time (2.30am BST) and he was shot.

Next of kin have been informed.