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Five British soldiers gunned down by an Afghan policeman they were training died while preparing for tea.

The rogue cop switched his AK47 to automatic and poured bullets into the men as they sat down to eat in a fortified compound in lawless Helmand province after a patrol.

The dead are Sgt Matthew Telford, Warrant Officer Darren Chant and Guardsman James Major of the Grenadiers and Acting Cpl Steve Boote and Cpl Nicholas Webster-Smith of the Royal Military Police.

They had been mentoring local police, sharing their food, billets and the dangers of daily patrols.

The assassin, named as Gulbuddin, fled.

Last night Gordon Brown called the massacre “a terrible loss” but vowed to carry on the fight.

But, amid fears the Taliban have infiltrated large parts of Afghanistan’s police and army, many Labour MPs said it was time to consider pulling out our 9,000 troops.

Kim Howells, head of the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee, said: “It would be better to bring home the great majority of our fighting men and women.”

The former Foreign Office minister added that the billions being spent in Afghanistan could then be used “to secure our own borders”.

Senior Labour backbencher David Winnick challenged Gordon Brown directly: “Isn’t the country entitled to know how long British military personnel will be in Afghanistan and can this war be won?”

Tuesday’s attack, which wounded six more UK soldiers and two Afghans, takes British dead in the conflict to 229 since 2001. And with 92 dead so far, it makes 2009 the bloodiest year for the armed forces since the 1982 Falklands War.

A UK military spokesman said: “It’s our understanding that one individual Afghan National Policeman, possibly in conjunction with another, went rogue. His motives and whereabouts are unknown at this time.”

Sgt Telford, 37, from Grimsby, Lincs, joined up at 16. He leaves a wife Kerry and two sons aged four and nine.

His uncle William Ferrand said: “It was his job and he loved it. He was a wonderful lad. His sons will be devastated.

“Whatever Kerry wants, the family will make sure we do as much as we can to help her.

“We’re a military family but Matthew was the first one to join at the age of 16.

“Nobody wants their family to go out there but it was what he wanted to do.”