BAGHDAD // A German soldier was killed in an attack in northern Afghanistan today that also slightly injured three other German soldiers. An eight-vehicle convoy patrolling the outskirts of the northern city of Kunduz ran into a booby trap at 9:25am local time (04:55 GMT), The German defence minister, Franz Josef Jung, said. The killed soldier has not yet been named. Mr Jung said three other troops were wounded and flown to Mazar-i-Sharif for treatment. The German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had earlier said only two other soldiers were injured.
The defence minister spoke of a "cowardly, perfidious" assault. All of the victims were members of a paratrooper battalion based in southwestern Germany. "This attack will not keep us from carrying out our duties to help bring about stability and peaceful development in Afghanistan," he told reporters in Berlin. "Afghanistan must not again become a training camp for terrorism." Germany has some 3,500 troops stationed in northern Afghanistan with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. They are frequent targets of attacks by insurgents.
Mr Jung acknowledged that the security situation in the country had worsened over the last few months which he said was the reason Germany had recently boosted its military presence in the Kunduz region. The victims of today's attack were among reinforcements sent there, Mr Jung said, adding that German troops had managed to capture militants and weapons stockpiles in recent weeks. * AFP
