A Canadian soldier died yesterday from injuries suffered in a crash in Afghanistan last week, while another was in serious condition after a savage axe attack, Canadian forces said.
Master Corporal Timothy Wilson died in hospital in Germany from injuries suffered in Thursday's accident near the southern city of Kandahar in which another Canadian troop was killed and five others hurt, a spokesman said.
Wilson was the crew commander of the armored vehicle that veered off the road, Lieutenant Mark MacIntyre said. Canada has about 2,300 troops in Kandahar.
PHOTO: AP
Lieutenant Trevor Greene was, meanwhile, in serious condition at Kandahar Airfield, after he was struck on the head with an axe by a lone assailant on Saturday while meeting with village elders at Shinkay, 70km north of Kandahar.
Greene was expected to be evacuated to a US military hospital in Germany for urgent treatment "very shortly," MacIntyre said.
Greene was attacked from behind while at the meeting with village elders to determine what kind of assistance they required from the international community, he said.
"Canadian forces reacted instantly and killed the assailant ... he was attacked from behind in a savage attack," MacIntyre said.
It appeared the attacker was not a member of the village council but a bystander, he said.
Canada took command last Tuesday of an international military coalition in Kandahar Province that is hunting down militants from the ousted Taliban regime and their allies, including from the al-Qaeda terror network.
Canadian forces have suffered a string of accidents and attacks in volatile southern Afghanistan this year.
Five were wounded -- one seriously -- in a suicide car bomb attack on Friday on a military convoy for which the Taliban claimed responsibility.
Four Canadian soldiers were hurt in two separate accidents in Kandahar last month involving their military vehicles.
Senior Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry was killed in a suicide car bomb attack in mid-January.
Around 10 Canadian troops on duty in Afghanistan have been killed since 2001, when a US-led force invaded the country and removed the hardline Taliban government weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks on US cities which were blamed on al-Qaeda.
Four of the deaths were in US friendly fire, according to Canadian officials.
Meanwhile, a French soldier was killed in a firefight with suspected Taliban insurgents in Kandahar, the US military said yesterday in a statement.
According to the statement, the French member of the US-led coalition forces died of wounds suffered in Kandahar on Saturday. It said two insurgents were also killed in the engagement.
In Nawa district of southern province of Helmand, senior intelligence officers, along with three Afghan policemen, were killed after a remote-controlled device detonated against their car.
Qari Yousif Ahmadi, who claims to be the spokesman for the Taliban regime, claimed responsibility.
Currently over 19,000 US-led troops are hunting the remnants of Taliban and their allies from al-Qaeda network, mainly in the southern and eastern regions of the country where the insurgents are most active.
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