Two Spanish soldiers killed

German Burgos

Stanley Vera

Two Spanish soldiers have been killed and three more seriously injured in an attack on a Spanish patrol near Shewan on 24th September 2007.

The soldiers were travelling in an armour-plated BMR vehicle which is reported to have run over a mine.

Minister for Defence, José Antonio Alonso, named the dead as Germán Pérez Burgos, a married man from Alange, Badajoz, and Stanley Vera, born in Guayaquil in Ecuador.

French Alpine soldier, Lauren Pican, killed by suicide bomber

Laurent Pican, was a warrant officer of the 13th Battalion of Alpine Hunters of Chambéry in Savoy, a French army unit engaged in ISAF.

The convoy he was in, west of Kabul, on 21 September 2007, was targeted by a suicide bomber at the wheel of a booby-trapped car. Six civil Afghan was wounded at the time of the same attack.

Dutch Army Private Tim Hoogland

Dutch Army Private Tim Hoogland, aged 20, was killed in a gun battle with Taliban insurgents on 20th September 2007 in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan.

The battle raged for some hours until reinforcements arrived.

Pvt. Hoogland served with the 13th Infantry Airmobile.

Dutch Army Sergeant Martijn Rosier

Dutch Army Sergeant 1st Class, Martijn Rosier, 30, was killed in action on 26th August 2007 during a foot patrol at night in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan.

His unit had responded to an earlier bomb attack on a Dutch armoured vehicle.

Another Dutch soldier was injured in the same incident.

Sfc. Rosier served with the 111th Mechanised Engineers.

French brigadier, Stephane Rieu dies in accident

A French Brigadier, Stephane Rieu, serving with 1 Parachute Hussars was killed in a traffic accident while on patrol in Shakar-Darreh district. He died 23 August 2007.

Polish Army officer, 2nd Lt. Lukasz Kurowski

2nd Lt. Lukasz Kurowski

Polish Army officer, 2nd Lieutenant Lukasz Kurowski, was fatally wounded 14th August 2007, during an attack on a convoy by Taleban insurgents, about 20km from the city of Gardez. He died on his way to a military field hospital.

Aged 28, he served as the commander of a tank platoon in the 10th Armored Cavalry Brigade based in Swietoszow, Poland. Kurowski had enlisted in the service in 2003, and had been serving in Afghanistan with an advisory group based in Gardez since September 2006. He was married.

Two Korean Aid workers executed

Two South Korean aid workers have been executed.

The 2007 South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan began on July 19, 2007, when 23 South Korean missionaries were captured and held hostage by members of the Taliban while passing through Ghazni Province of Afghanistan. Two male hostages were executed before the deal was reached between the Taliban and the South Korean government. The group, composed of sixteen women and seven men, was captured while traveling from Kandahar to Kabul by bus on a mission sponsored by the Saemmul Presbyterian Church.

The crisis began when two local men, who the driver had allowed to board, started shooting to bring the bus to a halt. Over the next month, the hostages were kept in cellars and farmhouses and regularly moved in groups of three to four.

Of the 23 hostages captured, two men, Bae Hyeong-gyu, a 42-year-old South Korean pastor of Saemmul Church, and Shim Seong-min, a 29-year-old South Korean man, were executed on July 25 and July 30, respectively. Later, with negotiations making progress, two women, Kim Gyeong-ja and Kim Ji-na, were released on August 13 and the remaining 19 hostages on August 29 and August 30.

L: Bae Hyeong-gyu. C: Korean Hostage group. R: Shim Seong-min

The release of the hostages was secured with a South Korean promise to withdraw its 200 troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2007. Although the South Korean government offered no statement, a Taliban spokesman claimed that the militant group also received some US$20 million in exchange for the safety of the captured missionaries.

French para, Pascal Correia, killed in RPG attack

On the night of July 24-25, 2007 Pascal Correia was supporting the Afghan National Army in Wardak province. He was fatally wounded when struck by shrapnel from rockets fired by insurgents.

Born on May 9, 1967 in Haute-Saone, Pascal entered the French Military, joining the 1st Parachute Regiment in December 1985 when he was 18 years old.

He made Master Corporal in 1986 and Sergeant the following year.

Pascal Correia

Norwegian officer, Lt. Tor Arne Lau-Henriksen

Lt. Tor Arne Lau-Henriksen

Norwegian officer, Lieutenant Tor Arne Lau-Henriksen, aged 33, was killed in action on 23rd July 2007.

He joined Hærens Jegerkommando (Army Ranger Commando) before he went to Afghanistan. During a mission there, Lau-Henriksen was killed by insurgents. 

He and other Norwegian soldiers were on a reconnaissance mission together with soldiers from the Afghan National Army, when they were attacked by Taliban members dressed as civilians. 

Lau-Henriksen was shot in the chest and became the first soldier from Hærens Jegerkommando to be KIA in Afghanistan. He was posthumously awarded the Military Cross.

German engineer, Ruediger Diedrich

AID WORKER
Name:	Ruediger Diedrich
Age:	43
Nationality:	German
Employer:
Location:	Wardak province, Afghanistan
Date:	21 July 2007
Cause:	Kidnapped by Taliban and murdered

Dutch Army Lieutenant Tom Krist

Dutch Army officer, Lieutenant Tom Krist, aged 24, died 10th July 2007 from serious head injuries received from the blast of a suicide bomber days earlier in Afghanistan. 

Lt. Krist had been evacuated first to a military field hospital in Afghanistan, and then to a hospital in Utrecht, where he sadly died.

Lt. Krist served with the 42nd Infantry Battalion.

Two Estonian soldiers killed in missile attack

Two Estonian soldiers were killed in a missile attack in Afghanistan on June 23 - the nation's first casualties in the NATO-led mission.

The two men, members of the Estonian mine clearance team, were attacked with a 107 mm missile during their lunch break in the Sangin Valley in the Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan.

Sgt. Kalle Torn, 24, the assistant commander of the ordnance disposal team, and Jn. Sgt. Jako Karuks, 33, the driver of the team, were named as the deceased. 

Sgt. Kalle Torn

Sgt. Jako Karuks

Four other soldiers sustained injuries in the same attack and remain in medical care at Camp Bastion.

Dutch Army Sgt. Major Jos Leunissen

Dutch Army Sergeant-Major Jos Leunissen, aged 44, was killed in action on 18th June 2007 in a fierce gun battle with Taliban insurgents. The battle took place near the town of Chora in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan.

Sgt. Major Leunissen served with the elite 11th Airmobile Brigade.

Dutch Army Pfc. Timo Smeehuijzen

Dutch Army Private 1st Class, Timo Smeehuijzen was killed on 15th June 2007 while on patrol in the city of Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan province.

The soldier died from the blast of a car bomb that detonated beside him. Five Afghan children also died in the incident.

Pfc. Smeehuijzen, aged 20, was serving with the 42nd Infantry Battalion.

Reporter, Ajmal Naqshbandi

Ajmal Naqshbandi

The Taleban killed Afghan reporter, Ajmal Naqshbandi, who was abducted in May with an Italian journalist, on 4th June 2007. 

The group said it had killed Ajmal Naqshbandi because the government had refused to meet its demands to release senior figures from prison. 

Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo was released after five Taleban members were freed in exchange. The driver, Sayed Agha, was beheaded last month.