The two servicemen are a private and an air technician from the 16th Air Assault Brigade, a frontline unit which has been engaged in heavy fighting in southern Iraq, the paper said.

The two men have told their commanding officers that they would not fight in a war involving the deaths of innocent civilians, the paper said, adding that they were ordered to return to the brigade's barracks in Colchester, Essex, southern England after raising their objections earlier this month.

The paper also said that they could face possible court martial and up to two years in jail for disobeying orders.

British authorities admitted on Sunday that two of their soldiers were sent home from Kuwait before the US-led war in Iraq broke out, declining to comment on the report that they could face a court martial.

Local reports quoted a British military spokesman at war headquarters in Qatar as saying that two soldiers had been sent home at the end of February on "medical or compassionate grounds."

(Xinhua News Agency March 30, 2003)