Afghanistan — Death of a New Zealand soldier

Today I spoke to the New Zealand Defence Min­is­ter, Dr Wayne Mapp, about the trag­ic death of a New Zealand sol­dier, Lieu­tenant Tim­o­thy O’Don­nell, in Afghanistan.

This is the first New Zealand casu­al­ty in Afghanistan. Lieu­tenant O’Don­nell was a mem­ber of the Provin­cial Recon­struc­tion team in Bamiyan Province, doing much the same recon­struc­tion and secu­ri­ty work as our sol­diers car­ry out in Uruz­gan Province. 

Aus­tralia and New Zealand have served togeth­er in mil­i­tary oper­a­tions over a very long time, includ­ing in Afghanistan. 

As Min­is­ter for Defence I offered Australia’s sin­cere con­do­lences to the New Zealand peo­ple and the fam­i­ly of Lieu­tenant O’Donnell for their trag­ic loss. Our thoughts remain with them all at this dif­fi­cult time. 

Media con­tacts:
Col­in Camp­bell (John Faulkn­er): 02 6277 7800 or 0407 787 181 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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