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Two Swedish officers killed in Afghanistan

National News | 2010-02-07 | 2 comments
Two Swedish officers today was killed when their foot patrol was fired upon, west of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan, the Swedish Armed Forces report.

“It is a captain and a lieutenant," said Torbjörn Gustafsson, Communications Officer at the Armed Forces, to news agency TT. Also a local interpreter have been killed and one Swedish soldier is wounded.

It was not a home-made bomb that caused the deaths, but fire from small arms.

"It is about small-bore fire, as we understand it," says Torbjörn Gustafsson.

The attack occurred about 40-50 kilometres west of the Swedish headquarters in Mazar-i-Sharif. Swedish and Finnish soldiers carried out a drug raid in the area earlier this week, where four people were arrested and 70 kilograms of drugs were seized, as well as explosives.

It is also in the same area as one local Afghan interpreter were killed in a bomb attack in November, when also five Swedish soldiers were injured.

First deaths since 2005

For four and a half years ago, in November 2005, two soldiers in the Special Forces was killed in Afghanistan by a bomb attack.

Overall, during the past few decades 14 Swedish soldiers have been killed in action, including the two people killed today.

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Readers' comments

2010-02-16 13:48 Robert wrote:
Marcus, I believe you are wrong. Surveys show that less than five percent of the Afghans want the Talibans back in power and a majority (around 65 percent) is in favour of the foreign military presence since they know that the Talibans would take over very soon otherwise. Of course reliable opinion polls in Afghanistan are very difficult to conduct but when attempts have been made to do so, the outcome has always been similar.
2010-02-16 12:20 Marcus wrote:
Even more will be killed in the future if we don´t finally take our soldiers out of there! Those people in Afghanistan just don´t want to change their way of life and that is it! This is a sort of occupation viewed through their eyes. Drugs and therorism are problematic, I agree, but they are just an excuse in this case. We shouldn´t be involved in this anymore!


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