Son of Netherlands' top general slain in Afghanistan

By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer 44 minutes ago

KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bombing killed the son of the Netherlands' top military officer on Friday, a day after his father assumed command of the Dutch armed forces, officials said.

Lt. Dennis van Uhm, 23, was one of two Dutch soldiers killed in the explosion 7 miles northwest of Camp Holland, the Dutch military base in Uruzgan province, spokesman Lt. Gen. Freek Meulman said.

The Dutch are fighting alongside U.S, British and Canadian troops at the forefront of NATO's battles with the Taliban and other insurgents in southern Afghanistan. Other NATO nations such as Germany, Italy and Spain are based in the relatively safe north and west and have been criticized for not sending their combat troops to help out in a fight.

Friday's casualties bring the death toll of Dutch soldiers to 16 since the Netherlands began contributing combat forces to the NATO mission in Afghanistan in August 2006. The Dutch have 1,650 troops in southern Afghanistan.

There was no immediate comment from Gen. Peter van Uhm, who took up a new job as the overall commander of the Dutch military in a ceremony outside parliament in The Hague on Thursday.

"This morning I asked Gen. Van Uhm, the military commander, to concentrate on his personal situation," Defense Minister Eimert Van Middelkoop told reporters at a hastily called news conference in the Netherlands. "The contrast between yesterday's festivities ... could not be starker."

Two other soldiers were wounded in the attack on the Dutch soldiers' vehicle, which was returning to base after a reconnaissance mission, the Dutch military said.

Taliban insurgents likely planted the roadside bomb, also known as an improvised explosive device, or IED.

"There is no reason to believe that the roadside bomb attack was directed at Lt. Van Uhm," Meulman said.

The attack came a day after a suicide attack in southwestern Nimroz province killed 24 people and wounded more than 30 others — mostly civilians — in the latest in a series of bloody strikes blamed on Taliban militants.

Six years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled the hard-line Taliban regime, hostilities show little sign of easing. Suicide attacks in Afghanistan spiked last year, with the Taliban launching more than 140 such missions — the highest number since the insurgency began after 2001. The fighting is most intense in the south of the country.

Over 1,000 people, mostly militants, have died this year in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan, according to an Associated Press tally of figures provided by Afghan and Western officials.

Separately, another roadside blast hit a convoy of a private security firm in central Logar province, killing three Afghan security guards and wounding another, provincial police chief Mustapha Khan said.

The four were working for a foreign company, Khan said. He did not identify the company.

At least two other suicide attacks have hit Nimroz this month, including an attack on April 1 that left two policemen dead in Zaranj, and another Saturday that killed two Indian road construction engineers and their Afghan driver in Khash Rod district.

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