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(CNN) -- A Taliban rocket attack in southern Afghanistan has killed an Australian soldier, that country's defense ministry announced Monday.
The attack hit a coalition base in Oruzgan province, southwest of the Afghan capital Kabul, on Sunday, the ministry said.
"The soldier was killed instantly when a rocket exploded in the compound," Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the Australian military's chief of staff, said in a written statement.
There were no other coalition casualties in the attack, he said. The slain soldier was not immediately identified.
Australia has about 1,090 troops in Afghanistan, where a U.S.-led coalition has been battling the Taliban and its allies in the al Qaeda terrorist network since the 2001 al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington. Sunday's fatality was the the nation's eighth combat death in the 7-year-old war.
All About Afghanistan • Afghanistan War • Australia
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