New Zealand SAS soldier in German hospital

By KEVIN TAYLOR and AGENCIES

One of two New Zealand special forces soldiers wounded in an attack in Afghanistan has been flown to hospital in Germany, a Defence Force spokeswoman said yesterday.

The soldier has been receiving medical attention for a gunshot wound he received in Friday's attack.

"My last information was that [a soldier] has been evacuated to a hospital in Germany and that's the procedure that's been worked out for these situations," Commander Sandy McKie said.

The wounding of the New Zealand SAS soldiers in central Afghanistan came as Amnesty International said the country was descending into lawlessness.

The pair were injured in a pre-dawn battle with anti-coalition forces.

The Defence Force has said one has already gone back to his unit.

It had refused to say where the wounded men were taken but US Central Command in Kabul has told the Herald they were flown by helicopter to a medical facility at Kandahar airfield in the south of the country.

Kandahar province borders Pakistan and has been one of the areas of the country troubled by fresh violence in recent months as elections approach.

Last week in neighbouring Zabul province, 60 Taleban insurgents attacked a Government office in the town of Mizan.

Associated Press reported that about the same time a US vehicle struck a mine about 48km from Zabul's capital, Qalat, wounding two US soldiers and killing an Afghan interpreter. Both soldiers were also airlifted to Kandahar for treatment, presumably at the same facility as the New Zealanders.

The Defence Force has said it would probably not name the injured SAS soldiers or reveal where they were from.

Major General Martyn Dunne, joint forces commander, said on Friday night that the pair were wounded after encountering an "opposition force".

"You can draw your own inference that anyone that would carry out the incident were clearly members of either the Taleban or al Qaeda connection that are still operating."

But he would not be drawn on where in central Afghanistan the fighting occurred other than to rule out Ghor province and neighbouring Bamian province, where a 100-strong Kiwi provincial reconstruction team is located.

Amnesty said last week that as the world's attention shifted away from Afghanistan the country was becoming more unstable.

"Unless the spiralling lawlessness is stopped, Afghanistan risks collapsing into outright conflict."

In other recent violence Ghor's capital, Chaghcharan, was overrun by rebel forces.

Violence has worsened markedly in recent months as Islamic insurgents from the ousted Taleban militia seek to disrupt elections due in September and renegade commanders refuse to give up territory and power without a fight.

General Dunne revealed on Friday that the New Zealand SAS were operating on their own and were "a long, long way from the normal conventional forces".

Green MP Keith Locke called yesterday for the Government to withdraw New Zealand forces. He said the troops were in unnecessary danger because they were fighting under US command amid mounting hostility towards "trigger-happy" US troops.