West Gurkhas in the firing line as special forces escape the axe

Around 150 Gurkhas face the axe as part of controversial Armed Forces cuts, MPs were told yesterday.

Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey said the famous troops – who have a special link with the West – would go among 1,000 Army job losses, along with 1,600 in the Navy, in the first of several waves of redundancies.

Scores of West-based personnel are likely to be among those leaving, at a time when the military is in action in Libya and Afghanistan.

The Royal Marines, including those based near Taunton, and the crack special forces, the Hereford-based SAS and Dorset-based SBS, are exempt from the redundancies.

Bomb disposal officers, the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Intelligence Corps will also not be laid off, along with the infantry – apart from the Gurkhas.

They have a close link with the West as Headquarters Brigade is based at Airfield Camp near Netheravon, Wiltshire.

There is also a significant presence at Blandford Camp in Dorset, where Gurkha Royal Signals operate, and which has a Hindu temple.

Just two years ago Gurkha rights campaigners were celebrating victory after the Government agreed to allow veterans to live in the UK.

Yesterday Brigadier Richard Nugee, head of Army manning, said infantry, engineers, signallers and logisticians would all have to go. He admitted few were likely to volunteer, meaning most of the redundancies will be compulsory.

Peter Carroll of the Gurkha Justice Campaign said: "I can't understand how the Government can make this sort of decision at a time when we have the most amount of troops deployed abroad since the Second World War."

Mr Harvey said personnel would be told in September if they are to lose their job.

He said when notices are issued, no one preparing for or deployed on combat operations would be made compulsorily redundant.

Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy said the handling of the announcement was "simply inexcusable" after details leaked before personnel were told.

Under the coalition Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review, 17,000 Armed Forces jobs, and 25,000 civilian staff, will go over five years, to save £5 billion.

Tory North Wiltshire MP James Gray told the Commons yesterday: "We all very much regret every single redundancy under this deficit-driven SDSR.

"But what is terribly important is they should be given the most generous possible conditions in redundancy."

Around a quarter of the Army redundancies are expected to come from officers up to the rank of brigadier, while the Navy is cutting 121 officers up to the rank of captain, and 15 of the Fleet Air Arm's 59 fixed-wing pilots will also go.

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