| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| 2 NATO troops, three rebels killed in Afghanistan |
| 2007-04-21 |
| Two NATO soldiers were killed on Friday in separate blasts in southern Afghanistan, while three Taliban rebels died when a bomb they were planting exploded prematurely, officials said. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which has around 37,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting the resurgent Taliban movement, gave no further details about the dead soldiers. “Earlier today, two ISAF soldiers died as the result of explosions in two separate incidents in southern Afghanistan,” an ISAF statement said. However the Netherlands said earlier on Friday that a 21-year-old Dutch corporal became the first Dutch soldier to be killed in action in Afghanistan on Friday when he stepped on a landmine during a foot patrol. Dutch chief of defence staff General Dick Berlijn confirmed the soldier was part of NATO’s Operation Achilles against the Taliban in southwestern Helmand province, according to the ANP news agency. There are about 2,000 Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan. The deaths brought to 42 the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this year. Some 170 were killed there in 2006. |
| Posted by:Fred |