British troops in Afghanistan will hold a private memorial service later to remember the eight men who died last week in a single 24-hour period.

Six British soldiers were killed in Helmand province on Friday

Tributes will be paid at Camp Bastion, a day after it emerged that three of those killed on Friday were just 18.

Meanwhile, new Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth will answer questions in Parliament for the first time.

The Tories have accused the government of the "ultimate dereliction of duty" in under-equipping the armed forces.

On Sunday, the Ministry of Defence named six soldiers who were killed in Helmand last Friday.

Five were members of the County Down-based 2nd Battalion The Rifles. They were: Cpl Jonathan Horne, and Riflemen Joseph Murphy, Daniel Simpson, William Aldridge and James Backhouse.

The sixth was Cpl Lee Scott, of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment.

In the same 24 hours - the bloodiest since the start of operations in Afghanistan in 2001 - Rifleman Daniel Hume, of 4th Battalion The Rifles, and Pte John Brackpool, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, also died.

More vehicles

Conservatives will use Mr Ainsworth's first Commons defence questions on Monday to accuse him of failing British troops.

Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox will demand answers about what he says is a scandalous shortage of helicopters in Helmand, which has left British troops more vulnerable to roadside bombs.

Over the weekend, Gordon Brown defended the strategy in Afghanistan and said the government had increased defence spending by more than a billion pounds in the past year.

He said new equipment had already been provided and more, including Merlin helicopters and Ridgeback armoured vehicles, would arrive in the coming months.

But he added: "We must do more and we will do more."

Speaking to the British Forces Broadcasting Service, Mr Brown insisted the mission in Afghanistan was key to the UK's domestic security.

But a poll carried out for the BBC suggests public opinion is split on the issue.

Of 1,000 people questioned, 47% said they opposed the British operation, while 46% said they supported it.

However, it does appear that backing for the campaign has increased since 2006, when only 31% of people gave their support.

Panther's Claw

UK troops have spent recent weeks on an offensive - codenamed Panther's Claw - which is designed to increase security ahead of Afghan elections planned for next month.

But the surge has brought a big increase in casualties, with 15 servicemen killed in the first 10 days of the month.

It means 184 service personnel have now died in Afghanistan since 2001, more than the 179 who were killed during the war in Iraq.

The deaths of the three 18-year-olds matches the number previously killed at that age during almost eight years of conflict in Afghanistan.

By PAMELA HESS Associated Press Writer © 2009 The Associated Press

July 12, 2009, 12:25AM

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney directed the CIA eight years ago not to inform Congress about a nascent counterterrorism program that CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated in June, officials with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

Subsequent CIA directors did not inform Congress because the intelligence-gathering effort had not developed to the point that they believed merited a congressional briefing, said a former intelligence official and another government official familiar with Panetta's June 24 briefing to the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

Panetta did not agree.

Upon learning of the program June 23 from within the CIA, Panetta terminated it and the next day called an emergency meeting with the House and Senate Intelligence committees to inform them of the program and that it was canceled.

Cheney played a central role in overseeing the Bush administration's surveillance program that was the subject of an inspectors general report this past week. That report noted that Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, personally decided who in Bush's inner circle could even know about the secret program.

But revelations about Cheney's role in making decisions for the CIA on whether to notify Congress came as a surprise to some on the committees, said another government official. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program publicly.

An effort to reach Cheney was unsuccessful.

A former intelligence official, who was familiar with former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden's tenure at the CIA, said Hayden never communicated with the president or vice president about the now-canceled program and was under no restrictions from Cheney about congressional briefings. The official said Hayden was briefed only two or three times on the program.

Exactly what the counterterrorism program was meant to do remains a mystery. The former intelligence official said it was not related to the CIA's rendition, interrogation and detention program. Nor was it part of a wider classified electronic surveillance program that was the subject of a government report to Congress this past week.

The official characterized it as an embryonic intelligence gathering effort, and only sporadically active. He said it was hoped to yield intelligence that would be used to conduct a secret mission or missions in another country — that is, a covert operation. But it never matured to that point.

The government official with direct knowledge of the Panetta briefing and the former intelligence official said the CIA has numerous efforts ongoing under its existing authorities that have not yet been briefed to Congress. He said they are not yet known to be viable for intelligence gathering.

The Cheney revelation comes as the House of Representatives is preparing to debate a bill that would require the White House to expand the number of members who are told about covert operations. The White House has threatened a veto over concerns that wider congressional notifications could compromise the secrecy of the operations.

That provision, however, would have no effect on programs like this one.

The former intelligence official familiar with Hayden said Congress has a right to contemporaneous information about all CIA activities. But he said there are so many in such early stages that briefing Congress on every one would be too time consuming for both the CIA and the congressional committees.

The New York Times initially reported about Cheney's direction not to tell Congress of the program on its Web site Saturday.