Gurkha shot as he built sentry post

A gurkha was shot dead in southern Afghanistan as he was building a new sentry post.

Sapper Ishwor Gurung, 21, from the Queen's Gurkha Engineers, was working at a base in Nad-e-Ali, Helmand province, on Friday when insurgents attacked. His mother, Sunkumari, said: "He loved the Army and was very proud to be a Gurkha. I am proud that my son served in the British Army and that he died doing a job that he loved."

Sapper Gurung was born in Pokhara, Nepal, and had to support his family after his father died when he was 14. Like his father he became a soldier, passing selection to become a Gurkha in 2007. He was deployed to Afghanistan this year on his first operational tour.