The British Ministry of Defense has announced that a soldier from the Royal Military Police has been killed in southern Afghanistan.

The ministry said on Wednesday that the soldier was killed during operations in the Babaji area in Helmand province.

Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield, a spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said, "It is with deep sadness I must inform you that a soldier from The Royal Military Police was shot and killed."

The death brings the number of the British soldiers killed in Afghanistan to 235 since the US-led invasion in 2001.

Ninety-eight British service personnel have lost their lives in 2009 alone, making it the bloodiest year for the UK troops since the Falklands War in 1982.

An increasing majority of Britons want the country's 9,000 troops out of Afghanistan within a year, according to the latest opinion polls.

Some 71 percent of Britons would back a phased withdrawal of British forces within 12 months, a poll conducted by The Independent showed.

AGB/AKM