Czech PM makes unannounced visit to Afghanistan

The Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolánek, made an unannounced visit to Czech soldiers in Afghanistan on Thursday. His visit came a week after a soldier from the Czech Republic became the country’s second combat casualty in Afghanistan. Mr Topolánek first stopped at a field hospital at Kabul airport, before travelling to the province of Logar, where a Czech provincial reconstruction team is operating. The PM told Czech soldiers they were mostly the same age as his oldest child and when one of them was killed or injured it felt as if it had happened to his own child. By coincidence, the second Czech to die in combat in Afghanistan was killed hours after the Czech Parliament approved the sending of 100 extra soldiers to the war-torn country.