The family members of the Canadian soldiers wounded in a weekend suicide bombing in Afghanistan are preparing to join their loved ones in Germany, where they are being treated at a U.S. army hospital.

"One is very seriously injured, one seriously injured and one is stable," Canadian Armed Forces medical officer Maj. Nick Withers said at a briefing Tuesday morning at the hospital in Landstuhl.

"They've been admitted to the intensive care unit here at the medical centre where they're getting the highest level of medical care from our American colleagues," Withers said of the wounded soldiers, all of whom are based in Edmonton.

Pte. William Edward Salikin and Cpl. Jeffrey Bailey remain in a state of medically induced unconsciousness while Master Cpl. Paul Franklin, who lost a leg in the blast, is in stable condition.

While Withers said he was unable to elaborate on the injuries suffered by the soldiers for confidentiality reasons, he hopes to provide more information in the next day or two, when family members are expected to arrive in Germany.

Officials are working out details to get the families to Germany, the military said Monday.

They are trying to determine whether the families would have to travel on commercial or military flights and where they could stay once in Germany.

Withers said he will help decide when the soldiers will be able to safely return to Canada.

"It is a significant flight to get them there, and the stresses of the flight are not to be disregarded," he said.

Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry was killed in the blast when an explosives-laden vehicle swerved into his convoy as it was returning to base and blew up, destroying the armoured jeep in which he was a passenger.

Berry's remains were placed aboard a Canadian Forces Hercules aircraft in a solemn tarmac ceremony in Kandahar on Tuesday.

The longtime diplomat will be transported to his native Great Britain, where he will be buried.

The suicide bombing, which also killed two Afghans and injured 13 people near Kandahar on Sunday, is heightening fears that the threat to troops in Afghanistan is mounting.

Despite the weekend attack, a fresh battalion of Canadian troops will be heading to Afghanistan next month.

There are currently about 685 members of the Canadian Forces working in Afghanistan, and about 450 are stationed at the Kandahar base.

Under a multinational brigade led by a Canadian general, about half of the 2,200 troops arriving next month will shift away from reconstruction work, taking their fight to the enemy in remote villages and mountains, where their greatest threat will be roadside devices, landmines, and suicide bombers.

"We are deploying all efforts to understand what's happening here," Lt.-Gen. Marc Caron, chief of land staff for Canadian Forces from Ottawa, said Monday in Edmonton.

"The Afghan army had a number of incidents. Are the tactics changing? And if they are, what will be our reaction? We're working on this."

The 2,200 members of the Edmonton-based 1st Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Battle Group are preparing to enter Afghanistan as the Canadian casualty count over 44 1/2 months reaches nine dead, 26 injured.

Most of the soldiers will be based 20 km south of Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold in the heart of Afghanistan's most conservative province.

Violence across southern and eastern Afghanistan marked a sharp increase last year, leaving about 1,600 people dead, the highest death toll since American-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 for harbouring Osama bin Laden.

With files from The Canadian Press