The father of a British soldier who was killed in Iraq yesterday has paid tribute to his son. 29 year-old Corporal Matthew Cornish, who was married with two young children, sustained injuries after a mortar attack on a base in Basra. He was rushed to hospital, but he later died. He was the first soldier to be killed in an attack on a UK military compound in Iraq. "I'm proud of him as a soldier and as a son. He did the Army proud," 60 year-old Robin Cornish said of his son, the one hundred and fifteenth British soldier to be killed in Iraq since operations began in 2003.
Cornish was taken to a Basra hospital.