Stuart Gray, Paul Lowe and Scott McArdle

Sergeant Stuart Gray, 31, Private Scott McArdle, 22, and Private Paul Lowe, 19, were the first British soldiers to die in a suicide attack in Iraq.

An inquest in Oxford heard from colleagues who were also at the checkpoint on 4 November 2004.

The coroner recorded verdicts of unlawful killing on all three men.

Private Andrew McMenemy said he saw a saloon car driven by a local man approaching the checkpoint about 16 miles from the soldiers' base, east of the Eurphrates River.

Moments after it was flagged down, it exploded into a "fireball", lifting Pte McMenemy into the air. He saw he saw "flames 100ft in the air".

As he was treated for arm and leg injuries, the checkpoint came under mortar attack, he said.

CO's evidence

The soldiers' commanding officer, Lieutenant Alexander Ramsay, told the inquest he had just stepped into the turret of a Warrier armoured personnel carrier when the bomber struck.

"Initially the only casualty I remember seeing was the locally employed civilian (interpreter) about 10 metres in front," he said.

The other three victims, all from Fife, had been blown into a ditch 30 yards away. The blast left a crater six to eight feet wide and two feed deep.

Pathologist Nicholas Hunt said the soldiers were killed by the force of the blast.

The three soldiers' body armour would have been stopped shrapnel but would have been of little use against the blast wave of the explosion.