Copenhagen (ANTARA News/AFP) - A Danish soldier was killed in an explosion in the southern Afghan province of Helmand Sunday morning, the Danish military said.

The soldier, who had been carrying out "an operative duty west of the Patrol Base Line," was evacuated by helicopter to the Danish field hospital at Camp Bastion, but "his life could not be saved," the military said in a statement.

It provided no further details of the circumstances around the explosion.

There are some 750 Danish troops in NATO`s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), most of them in Helmand province under British command.

Denmark has said that 30 of them will be brought home this summer, and that by the second half of 2012, the force will be reduced to about 650 soldiers.

Sunday`s death brought to 39 the number of Danish soldiers killed in combat in Afghanistan since the deployment began. Two others have died outside of combat, one of a heart attack and the other by suicide. (*)

Editor: Kunto Wibisono
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