Europe

Europe

Polish PM goes to Afghanistan to honour 5 dead soldiers

22 December 2011 22:26 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk went to Afghanistan on Thursday to pay homage to five Polish soldiers who were killed by a makeshift bomb, the PAP news agency reported.

At a military ceremony at the Polish base in southeastern Ghazni the head of government hailed the memory of the victims of what he called "the greatest tragedy in the history of Polish missions" abroad.

Taliban bombers attacked the soldiers’ convoy on Wednesday, causing the deadliest single loss for Warsaw’s NATO contingent in the 10-year war.

The five soldiers were killed by what Tusk described Wednesday as a "very powerful explosive device" while on patrol. The attack took place on a "road considered to be safe until now," he added.

Poland has 2,600 soldiers in Afghanistan and is one of the largest contributors to NATO’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which expects to withdraw all combat troops by the end of 2014.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message to AFP.

The losses bring to 36 the number of Polish soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2002.