Latest developments
The Danish army says a soldier wounded seriously last month in southern Afghanistan has died. Rune Westy Zacharias Nielsen, 22, was transferred to Denmark after he was wounded by a roadside explosive device on Oct 31 in Helmand province. He is Denmark's 27th casualty since it joined the US-led coalition in 2002. The Nordic country has 700 troops serving in the NATO force.
Germany has extended the deployment of its armed forces in Afghanistan and Lebanon, a senior government official said yesterday. The cabinet extended the mandates to support Afghanistan operations for a year and the navy's mandate to support the UN's peacekeeping mission in Lebanon by six months.
Most Afghans see not Taliban militants but poverty, unemployment and government corruption as the main causes of war in their country, according to a report by a leading aid group released yesterday. After three decades of war, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Unemployment stands at 40 percent and more than half the people in the country live below the poverty line.