Missiles landed at a Nato base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, wounding four Bulgarian military personnel. The incident happened just 300m from the accommodation of visiting Bulgarian Defence Minister Nikolai Mladenov, bTV reported on January 24 2010.

According to Darik Radio, one soldier was seriously injured and was in a coma.

The Defence Ministry identified those injured in the attack as Junior Sergeant Alexander Alexandrov, Corporal Yordan Petkov, Private Yavor Kirilov and Private Luchezar Danailov.

The wounded were being treated at a US military hospital near Kandahar Airport. Security at the base had been stepped up, according to the Defence Ministry in Sofia.

It was the second such attack on the base in a month. In 2009, there were 48 such attacks, Dnevnik said.

Mladenov, who is Bulgaria's Foreign Minister-designate, has been on a five-day visit to the Bulgarian contingent in Afghanistan in one of his last major acts as Defence Minister.

He visited the wounded in hospital. Earlier in the day, Mladenov met the 270-member Bulgarian deployment in Kandahar, Bulgarian news agency BTA said.

As The Sofia Echo reported earlier, Bulgaria has deployed a 600-strong mechanised infantry battalion in Afghanistan, its main tasks being the security of the airport in the southern Afghan town of Kandahar and military installations in capital Kabul. Kandahar is a Taliban stronghold and terrorist attacks in the region are commonplace.

The Bulgarian contingent in Afghanistan is likely to be reinforced by 30 additional personnel at the beginning of 2010, which may be followed by a further deployment of 70 more personnel by the end of the year, Mladenov was quoted as saying by Bulgarian news agency BTA on December 18 2009.

The first reinforcement is expected to be 30 doctors and other medical staff and a complete field hospital, followed by the potential deployment of another 70 infantry personnel by the end of the year.

It is not the first time that Mladenov has come close to the firing line since becoming Defence Minister as part of Prime Minister Boiko Borissov's Government in July 2009. Soon after he took office, Mladenov was present at an exercise on the Black Sea coast when a missile accident caused an explosion close to the ranks of VIPs.