Good Afghan news from Dutch

The extension of their combat mission looks a virtual certainty, with only a small reduction in troop numbers:

Dutch troops will stay in Afghanistan with the multinational NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for another two years until 2010, the government said Friday.

In a widely anticipated announcement the centre-left coalition government said it would extend the mandate of the Dutch troops in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan until December 2010.

The mandate had been set to expire in August 2008.

The government decision still has to be approved by parliament but it is expected to go through because the parties in the coalition government, who hold a majority of the 150 seats are backing the extension.

"Today the Dutch cabinet decided that we will make a new contribution to the ISAF mission in Uruzgan for a period of two years," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told reporters.

"The Netherlands will end its leading role in Uruzgan on August 1, 2010," Balkenende said. Troops would pull out over a four-month period and would be home before December 2010.

A government statement said that the mission would however be slimmed down as NATO partners Czech Republic, France, Hungary and Slovakia had agreed to contribute troops [emphasis added].

Currently the Dutch have some 1,650 soldiers in Uruzgan: that number will be brought to between 1,450 and 1,350 [emphasis added], said the statement.

Balkenende said he wanted the parliament to vote on the matter before the Christmas recess which starts December 21...

Meanwhile a French general has a certain gall (though he is speaking with his NATO hat on):

Larger NATO Force Needed in Afghanistan

As the Danes keep their end up:

Two Danish soldiers were killed Thursday in a gunbattle with Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, the Scandinavian country's military said.

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...

Denmark has some 600 troops in Helmand province that are part of NATO's 40,000-member force in Afghanistan [with tanks--video here]

A total of nine Danish troops have now been killed in Afghanistan [emphasis added].

The Danish population is around 5.5 million so those casualties are not light by ISAF standards. By comparison the Dutch have had twelve fatalities with a population of some 16.5 million--almost exactly half Canada's.

Update: Here's another indication why our public has so little knowledge of the Afghanistan issue. The Dutch decision was not reported in the Ottawa Sun or Ottawa Citizen, Dec. 1, and all it got in the print edition of the Globe and Mail was an "In Brief" mention. The Globe online, however, carried the full Reuters story (is that significant of something?) and generated lots of comments. The Toronto Star did give the story decent coverage. Go figure.