FALKLANDS veteran Simon Weston spoke of his sadness that the Afghanistan death toll had equalled that of the 1982 conflict.

Some 255 British and 655 Argentine service personnel were killed in the brief and bitter Falklands War.

The Welsh Guardsman became the public face of the conflict after suffering serious burns in the bombing of troop carrier, the Sir Galahad.

Weston said the latest grim milestone was deeply upsetting, but insisted it would be wrong for troops to leave the country and let the Taliban wrest back control.

He said: “For the Afghanistan death toll to reach that of the Falklands strikes me as very sad.

“It has taken a long time to get to this figure – over two years – and has been very dramatic for our boys and girls and the allies over there.

“But you now have to ask yourself how many more are going to die – is it going to exceed the figure of Northern Ireland even?”

Mr Weston suffered 46% burns when four Argentine aircraft bombed the vessel.

He has since had years of reconstructive surgery involving 75 operations.

He insisted that troops should not be pulled out of Afghanistan if it meant a return to the Taliban’s hard-line regime.

He said: “We can’t let the Taliban back in to conduct themselves the way they did before.” He added: “The Falklands was a more conventional conflict – it was two armies wearing uniforms engaged against each other.

“The Argentines acted as we did, in an honourable way.

“Afghanistan is very different.

“Our boys and girls are fighting people using essentially guerrilla tactics.

“Unfortunately, when you fight terrorists and the Taliban, they don’t wear uniforms.”