The son of the Netherlands’ top military officer was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan early this morning, one day after his father was made head of the Dutch armed forces.

Lieutenant Dennis van Uhm, 23, was among two Dutch soldiers killed in the blast seven miles northwest of their military base, Camp Holland, in Uruzgan province, the Dutch defence ministry said. The second dead soldier was not fully identified but was said to be 22 years old.

The military insisted today that there was nothing to suggest the commander’s son was deliberately targeted. However there were fears that the deaths could further erode public and political support for the Dutch mission, already at a low ebb.

The soldiers were returning to base after a reconnaissance mission when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device, General Freek Meulman said. Two other soldiers, aged 20 and 25, were wounded in the explosion, one of them critically.

Taleban fighters claimed responsibility for the attack.

There was no immediate comment from General Peter van Uhm, who assumed the job of armed forces commander at a ceremony at the Dutch parliament yesterday, succeeding General Dick Berlijn.

But Eimert van Middelkoop, the Dutch Defence Minister, insisted that the country would not be deterred from its mission. “We remain determined to do what is expected of us — united,” he said at a press conference.

Mr Van Middelkoop said that he had asked General Van Uhm to concentrate on his personal situation for the moment, adding: “The contrast between yesterday’s festivities ... could not be starker.”

The casualties bring the death toll of Dutch soldiers to 16 since the Netherlands began contributing combat forces to the International Stabilisation Force in Afghanistan in August 2006. The country has 1,650 troops in southern Afghanistan.

The Dutch Government decided in November to extend the mission until late 2010, despite stiff public and political opposition.

Earlier in the day, three Afghan staff of a foreign security company were killed in a roadside attack in Logar province to the south of the capital, Kabul, a provincial police official said.

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