Kabul, September 28: A trooper serving in New Zealand’s Special Air Services (SAS) has reportedly died in a US-led operation against Taliban militants in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Wardak.
“I was informed earlier today that the soldier was shot while the SAS were mentoring the Afghan Crisis Response Unit during an operation in the Wardak province of Afghanistan near Kabul,” New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said on Wednesday.
The US-led soldier, who was not identified, is the third New Zealander to be killed in Afghanistan this year.
New Zealand has about 40 SAS soldiers stationed in the Afghan capital of Kabul and was scheduled to end its Afghanistan mission in March, 2012.
There are also New Zealand task forces conducting reconstruction work in Bamiyan, a town in central Afghanistan about 240 kilometers from Kabul. These forces are set to remain in the war-torn country until 2014.
Nearly 10 years after the US-led military invasion of Afghanistan, the war-ravaged country continues to be one of the least secure areas of the world despite the presence of about 150,000 American and NATO troops there. Terrorism and narcotics production and trade have also climbed in the country drastically since the US-led occupation.
—–Agencies