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Women - Feminism Wars and conflicts UK
by Richard Norton-Taylor
A senior military policewoman found dead in Basra and named last night by the Ministry of Defence is understood to have killed herself.
Staff Sergeant Denise Rose of the Royal Military Police’s special investigation branch was found dead from a gunshot wound at the army base in the Shatt-al-Arab hotel on Sunday, the MoD said.
It added that the death was being investigated but was "not thought to have been the result of hostile action".
Staff Sgt Rose, who had been in Iraq for barely a month, was 34 and came from Liverpool. She is the first British female soldier to die in Iraq since the invasion last year.
The military police in Basra have been investigating a series of incidents involving British soldiers and Iraqi civilians, including a number which have led to fatalities.
Her death brings to 70 the number of British service personnel who have died in the Iraq conflict since the start of hostilities in March 2003. Fewer than half were the result of hostile fire. Six military policemen were killed by Iraqis near Basra last year in an incident yet to be fully explained.
Denise Rose joined the military police in 1989, and trained as an special investigator in 1995, the MoD said.
It added that she was deployed as a volunteer to Iraq on September 27, as part of a small team of specialist investigators "to provide security for the people of Iraq and assist in the rebuilding of the country through the provision of a well-trained police force".
Lt Col Robert Silk , commanding officer of her parent unit, based in Germany, described her death as a "terrible shock". He said she had "a multitude of friends, being universally popular, intelligent and ever cheerful".
· Black Watch troops came under bombardment yesterday as rebels stepped up rocket attacks against their desert base at Camp Dogwood.
The army said seven rockets were fired in the first daylight attacks since the controversial deployment on Friday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1341469,00.html