TBILISI: A Georgian soldier injured in January while serving with Nato-led forces in Afghanistan has died in a military hospital back home, the defence ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The death of corporal Givi Pantsulaia brings to 17 the number of Georgian troops killed in Afghanistan.

He was injured by a mortar shell explosion and transferred to a military hospital in the eastern Georgian city of Gori after treatment in a US military hospital in Germany.

Georgia is a staunch ally of the United States with ambitions to join Nato and currently has 800 troops serving in Afghanistan.

Georgia’s parliament voted in December 2011 to send another battalion to Afghanistan, which is expected to almost double the country's contingent there.

Tbilisi's Nato aspirations have infuriated neighbour Russia, which fought a brief war with Georgia in 2008.