Captain Jones, pictured with his wife Isobel, was killed in Basra

The body of a Catterick-based soldier killed in Iraq will be flown home "within days" the Ministry of Defence said on Monday.

Captain David Jones 29, was serving in the southern Iraqi city of Basra when the military ambulance he was travelling in was attacked.

Army chiefs have vowed to track down those responsible for the blast which killed the soldier and injured two others on Thursday.

Captain Jones, from Louth in North Lincolnshire, and his colleagues had been heading for a hospital in Basra when an "improvised device" was detonated as they passed a lamp-post.

The soldiers were from the First Battalion Queens Lancashire Regiment based at Catterick, North Yorkshire.

The Army believes the converted Land Rover they were travelling in - which was clearly marked with red crosses - was specifically targeted.

Perpetrators

"We will find the perpetrators of this act and bring them to justice in an Iraqi court," Major Charlie Mayo, the Army's spokesman in Basra said.

Capt Jones, 29, had been married to wife Isobel for a year.

In a short statement released on Friday she said: "I am extremely proud of Dai.

"He was a wonderful husband who served his country with great courage."

Capt Jones joined the Army in December 1991 as a soldier in the Royal Army Medical Corps