AN artillery unit based at Catterick Garrison has returned to Iraq for the third time.

Orders from Whitehall arrived at 5 Regiment, Royal Artillery over the Easter weekend, putting troops on stand-by. Then 86 gunners flew out to Iraq to join Operation Telic 4 on Friday and Saturday.

The Ministry of Defence would not say if the party is in addition to those already deployed in the Gulf, but a spokesman confirmed the regiment was only notified of the orders on Easter Saturday. Usually soldiers can expect several weeks' warning.

Gunners from the same unit were among the troops who swept into Iraq from Kuwait in March last year. As the men returned to Catterick in July, others from the regiment took their place, to help with security patrols and to restore the country's infrastructure.

Since then, the situation in Iraq has become increasingly volatile, although the British-controlled sector around Basra has escaped the worst of the trouble so far.

An Army spokesman said: "We had one or two problems with the locals a few days ago but soldiers who have returned to Catterick recently say the situation around Basra is calmer."

The gunners from 5 Regiment will join more than 200 soldiers from the Queen's Royal Lancers, who also left Catterick's Cambrai Barracks for Iraq at the beginning of the month.