Two Danish soldiers were killed and three others were injured, two of them seriously, in a bomb attack in the southern Helmand province in Afghanistan, the Danish military said Saturday. "It is with great sorrow that I today have received word that a roadside bomb has caused the death of two Danish soldiers and has injured three others, two of them seriously, while they were carrying out their duties," Danish defence chief Knud Bartels said in a statement.
A Danish tank on patrol hit the roadside bomb around midday Saturday about six kilometres (four miles) north-east of the town of Gereshk, the statement said. There are some 750 Danish troops in Nato's International Security Assistance Force. Most are in Helmand province under British command.
Nato's ISAF said earlier Saturday that two soldiers had been killed in a bomb attack in the south of Afghanistan, but did not disclose their nationalities. Thirty-four Danish soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the deployment began. The Scandinavian country of 5.5 million people has suffered more deaths than any other country as a proportion of the number of troops it has in the ISAF.