A 25-year-old Canadian soldier has been killed in Afghanistan after his armoured vehicle struck an Improvised Explosive Device.
The soldier has been identified as Trooper Michael Yuki Hayakaze, of Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians), based out of Edmonton, Alta.
He had been serving in Afghanistan since July or August and was nearing the end of his tour.
"Our comrade died in the service of his country. His sacrifice will not be forgotten and his memory will be with us as we continue to carry out our mission, with the same determination and resolve to see it through," Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche said at a news conference at Kandahar Airfield.
The IED blast occurred at 3:45 p.m. local time. No other Canadian soldiers were injured.
Hayakaze was taking part in a re-supply mission and his convoy was travelling through the Mushan region, located in the volatile Panjwaii district, about 45 kilometres west of Kandahar City.
CTV's Paul Workman told Newsnet that the area has been plagued by roadside bombs.
"It's a very dangerous place for Canadian soldiers," Workman said Sunday from the Kandahar Air Field base.
The area has been the source of many roadside bombings in the past, "and another one today," he said.
Hayakaze was evacuated from the area by helicopter and taken to the Multinational Medical Unit at Kandahar Airfield, but he died from his injuries on arrival.
Canada has lost 79 members of its military in Afghanistan since 2002. One diplomat has also been killed, along with one civilian aid worker.
Tower attack
The news came on a day when Taliban militants have attacked a second cellphone communications tower, this one located inside Kandahar city.
The militants burned the tower's base station late Saturday night, a police officer said.
The Roshan company, which owned the tower, declined to comment.
On Friday, the Taliban destroyed a tower in the Zhari district of Kandahar province, one owned by Areeba.
A Taliban spokesman said last week that such towers would be attacked if phone companies didn't switch off their signals in the overnight period.
The U.S. has claimed to have killed more than 50 mid- and top-level Taliban leaders in the past year. Many of the attacks took place at night.
Cellphone companies have been accused by the Taliban of colluding with foreign military forces.
While destroying the towers will affect thousands of ordinary Afghans, the Taliban will also be affected.
Mobile phones came to Afghanistan after the Taliban were pushed from power in late 2001. They are the main means of communication.
Cartoon protest
In the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, about 700 demonstrators burned Dutch and Danish flags in a protest over reprinting of satirical cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad and a film about the Koran by a Dutch politician.
The crowd, mainly clerics and religious students, demanded that Afghanistan's government shut down the Danish and Dutch embassies in Kabul.
Both Denmark and the Netherlands have troops serving in NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
"We don't want our government to have any diplomatic relations with these two countries," said Maulawi Abdul Hadi, a cleric and protest organizer. "We don't want Danish and Dutch troops in Afghanistan. They should be kicked out of the NATO forces here."
Some Danish newspapers recently reprinted the cartoons, which were linked to widespread protests in the Muslim world in early 2006, to an alleged plot to kill one of the cartoonists.
Afghanistan considers blasphemy against Muhammad and the Koran to be a serious crime, one that carries the death penalty as a possible sentence.
