An Italian soldier was killed and another injured in Afghanistan on Wednesday during an exchange of fire with unknown assailants near the southeastern town of Rudbar.
The attack took place at 15.00 local time as the soldiers, both involved in Italian cooperation and reconstruction efforts, were carrying out a mission 60 km from Kabul, defence officials in Rome said.
The dead soldier was named as Giovanni Pezzullo, an NCO from the northeastern city of Treviso.
The injured soldier, whose condition was not said to be serious, was not immediately identified.
There have been sporadic attacks on Italian forces in recent months, including one on November 24 when another soldier was killed by a suicide bombing near Kabul.
Pezzullo was the 12th Italian soldier to be killed in Afghanistan since Rome first sent troops to the country four years ago.
Italy's caretaker Premier Romano Prodi voiced solidarity with the family of the latest victim but quickly snuffed out any suggestion that the 2,350-strong Italian force in Afghanistan might be withdrawn in the wake of the attack.
''This is a mission that we have decided to carry out because it has long-term objectives,'' he said.
''Italy remains deeply committed, along with the international community, to the work of stabilising Afghanistan, in order to facilitate the country's democratic consolidation and create the conditions for economic and social development,'' Foreign Minister Massimi D'Alema said.
Left-wing parties in Prodi's government have long opposed Italy's presence in the central Asian country, saying conditions there have deteriorated to an extent that the mission can no longer be called a peacekeeping one.
Franco Giordano, head of the Communist Refoundation Party, avoided polemics on Wednesday, saying: ''This is not the time for political accusations''.
But another Communist party, the PDCI, immediately renewed its call for a withdrawal from Afghanistan.
A decree containing funding for Italy's peacekeeping missions abroad, including the Afghanistan mission, is scheduled to go to the House for approval next week.
Italy's troops, split between Kabul and the western city of Herat, are serving as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
