Operation Hammer: the latest roundin Britain's bloodiest campaign

By far the greatest proportion of the 67 British soldiers killed in Afghanistan have been lost in one small area of Helmand province. They and other Nato troops have been fighting for months to secure the area around the Kajaki dam, a project seen as vital to winning hearts and minds in one of the most hostile parts of the country.

All three soldiers killed in the past week were taking part in Operation Chakush (Hammer), the latest effort to drive Taliban forces sufficiently far from the dam to allow civilian engineers to come in and install new turbines.

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Kajaki was originally constructed by the Americans in the Cold War era, when the US and the Soviet Union were competing to give aid to Afghanistan. The dam fell into disuse in the wars that followed the Soviet invasion of 1979. But if it can be restored, it would supply hydro-power to most of southern Afghanistan, as well as helping to irrigate a large area of Helmand province.

Christopher Langton, senior fellow for conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said that the Kajaki project was "a very good example of how the international community, in support of the Afghan authorities, can prise away the support of local people from the Taliban".