The body of a Lt Tim O'Donnell and two of his injured comrades will fly back to NZ later today, the Defence Force says.

The body of slain NZ soldier Lieutenant Timothy O'Donnell and his two wounded colleagues may be home as early as Saturday evening.

The body of Lieutenant Tim O'Donnell and his two injured colleagues have been moved to Bagram airbase and will be evacuated to NZ.

The attack in which Lieutenant Timothy O'Donnell died yesterday was in a particularly troubled part of Afghanistan, where the mountainous terrain lends itself to ambushes by Taleban insurgents and criminals.

Tim O'Donnell grew up dreaming of being a soldier. He first revealed his military aspirations aged 4, in his grandmother's arms. She encouraged him by giving him an Army helmet.

Labour leader Phil Goff knows the pain of the grieving O'Donnell family - his nephew was killed in Afghanistan three years ago.

The New Zealand soldier killed in Afghanistan overnight was a decorated officer who had been in the army for five years.

New Zealand's first combat death in Afghanistan is not a reason to withdraw our troops from the country, Prime Minister John Key says.

Maggie Tait, who visited Bamiyan in May, reflects on life on the New Zealand base there in the wake of its first combat death.

A New Zealand soldier has been killed and two others injured in an attack on a routine patrol in Afghanistan, the Defence Force announced today. A local interpreter with the patrol was also injured during the attack.

A senior volunteer for Wikileaks in the US was detained as the FBI steps up its investigation into the leak of thousands of Afghanistan war secrets.

Wayne Mapp has confirmed the WikiLeaks report of a missile threat faced by an RNZAF Hercules in Afghanistan last year.

Murray McCully says Afghanistan's Bamiyan Province, where NZ troops have been since 2003, will be ready to stand on its own before Hamid Karzai's 2014 deadline.

The strategy sits for now on a table in a locked-down Afghan capital: Hand over security in all 34 provinces to the government by the end of 2014.

Brigadier Richard Felton points to the maps on the wall of his office in Lashkar Gah, dotted with markers for impending military operations over the long, hot, Afghan fighting season.

The three Gurkhas who died stood no chance. Two - believed to be British nationals - died in the operations room when it came under attack by a rocket-propelled grenade.