Two Danish soldiers were killed Thursday in a gunbattle with Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, the Scandinavian country's military said, according to AP. The soldiers were part of a Danish reconnaissance unit that came under fire in Gereshk Valley in Helmand Province, the Army Operational Command said. The two were evacuated by helicopter to a Danish camp, where they were pronounced dead. «It is with great regret that I have received the news that two Danish soldiers from the reconnaissance unit in the Danish battalion in southern Afghanistan fell in a battle with the Taliban,» Maj. Gen. Poul Kiaerskou, head of the Army Operational Command, said in a statement. The military did not release any other details about the shooting. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed his condolences to the soldiers' families. «It is a deep tragedy when soldiers die during fight to improve other people's living conditions,» Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement. «The Danish soldiers do an excellent job under very difficult circumstances to help the Afghani population.» Denmark has some 600 troops in Helmand province that are part of NATO's 40,000-member force in Afghanistan. A total of nine Danish troops have now been killed in Afghanistan.
