Britain has lost nearly 100 unmanned spy planes in war-ravaged Afghanistan and Iraq since 2003, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Without revealing its sources, The Herald has said that the unmanned aerial vehicle losses include about 50 that were shot down or suffered catastrophic technical failure in mid-air and another 40 damaged beyond repair by crash-landing on rough terrain in the two countries.

The loss also includes a ten-million-pound 'Reaper' which had been in service for less than six months, it said.
 
The equipment the surveillance aircraft were carrying was so sophisticated and so vital for intelligence-gathering that it hampered launching a number of rescue missions, according to British military commanders.

According to the report, the Ministry of Defence has admitted that 33 have been lost over Iraq, although it has not released details of the types of robot spy planes brought down by enemy fire, severe weather or internal faults.

At least 23 of the older and notoriously unreliable Phoenix drones used to locate enemy positions and movement for artillery bombardment were downed during the combat phase of the Iraq invasion in 2003.

Image: An MQ-9 Reaper flies by on a training mission at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada.
Reportage: PTI | Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images