Service Member Killed in Afghanistan, US Military Says
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2019 3:25 amISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - The U.S. military has announced that a U.S. service member was killed in action Monday in Afghanistan.
In making the announcement, the U.S. Forces-Afghanistan did not provide further details on where and how the casualty occurred.
The Taliban, in a statement sent to journalists, claimed the U.S. casualty occurred in the volatile northern Kunduz province.
The insurgent group said it targeted Afghan and American soldiers with a roadside bomb as they tried to conduct a joint raid against Taliban positions in the Char Dara district.
The Taliban controls most of Char Dara while the Afghan government controls the district headquarters. The insurgents hotly contest many districts in Kunduz, which has twice briefly fallen to the Taliban in recent years.
The Taliban claimed another U.S. soldier along with an Afghan commando were seriously wounded in the blast. Taliban claims are difficult to verify from independent sources and are often exaggerated.
Monday's fatality brings the number of American soldiers killed this year in Afghanistan to at least 19.
The 18-year-old Afghan war, America's longest, is said to have cost Washington nearly $1 trillion and the lives of around 2,300 U.S. service members.