Afghanistan consensus breaks down

“Death will not change Sweden’s tactics” in Afghanistan, writes Svenska Dagbladet, after Sweden's 500 strong contingent suffered its fifth casualty on 16 October. Predicting that this should prompt “a call for national unity in parliament", the Stockholm daily notes that a long-running cross-party consensus to commit to the nine year old war has started to unravel. While the government wants to maintain Sweden’s contingent in Afghanistan, social democrats and Greens are calling for their withdrawal. At the same time, the recent electoral success of the far-right Sweden Democrats, with enough seats to swing a vote on the issue, has complicated matters even further.