Two women were among the four British soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Thursday, BBC reported.
A fifth soldier was seriously injured and a civilian translator was killed in the bomb blast, which targeted a patrol in a Warrior armoured vehicle.
This latest incident brought the total number of UK troops killed in operations in Iraq to 140.
"I can understand why people looking from afar would think things are going terribly wrong. That is not the case," Col Kevin Stratford-Wright, the British Army's spokesman in Basra, told BBC News.
"We are making progress, but sadly a very small percentage of people in this area are capable of mounting some deadly attacks."
The British army's spokesman in Iraq said there has been a "steady increase" in the number of attacks on UK troops.