Two U.S. soldiers killed by Islamic State militants in eastern Afghanistan
Two U.S. service members died during operations against the Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Thursday.
Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said the deaths occurred overnight in Afghanistans Nangahar province, where a small but virulent Islamic State cell poses a threat for Afghan and U.S. coalition forces.
It was the third time this year that a member of the U.S. military has died in combat in Afghanistan. On April 8, Army Staff Sgt. Mark R. De Alencar, 37, was mortally wounded by small-arms fire, also in Nangahar.
The deaths come just days after Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis visited Afghanistan to assess the security situation and advance deliberations about the Trump administrations strategy for Americas longest war.
The commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, has called for thousands of additional troops to help prop up the Afghan military, which is struggling to hold off the Taliban and an array of other militant groups.
A local branch of the Islamic State, comprised mainly of militants pulled from other groups, has emerged as an increasing focus for U.S. forces remaining in Afghanistan.
While military officials the group is far smaller than it was at its height in 2015, an estimated 600 to 800 militants located mainly in remote mountainous areas have proven themselves to be a deadly adversary. Fighting has been fierce as U.S. and Afghan Special Operations forces, backed by hundreds of airstrikes, have sought to advance against militant strongholds in recent months.
Earlier this month, U.S. forces in Afghanistan dropped a 22,000-pound guided bomb called a GBU-43 on an Islamic State tunnel complex in Nangahar, the first use of a weapon of its kind.
While Afghan officials put number of Islamic State killed between 36 and roughly a hundred fighters, the U.S. military has not announced what exactly the massive bomb accomplished. Local media reports indicate that fighting around the blast site continues, and it was not immediately clear if Thursdays casualties occurred near that location.
Source: Washington Post
