Two American troops were killed and six others wounded by an Afghan soldier armed with a machine gun, the US military confirmed on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The deaths come at a sensitive time in the 18-year-old war<\/a>, with President Donald Trump<\/a> eager to bring troops home and end the longest conflict in US history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The incident occurred late Saturday at a base in Sherzad district, in Nangarhar province, eastern Afghanistan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCurrent reports indicate an individual in an Afghan uniform opened fire on the combined US and Afghan force with a machine gun,\u201d US Forces-Afghanistan spokesman Sonny Leggett said in a statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Provincial governor Shah Mahmood Meyakhil said in an audio message to reporters that three Afghan commandos were wounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said it was not immediately clear if the incident was a deliberate act by an \u201cinfiltrator\u201d or an accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was not a clash between the forces. We are investigating,\u201d Meyakhil said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leggett also stressed the cause or motive behind the attack were not immediately known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a tweet, the US Army\u2019s 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) said \u201cseveral\u201d of its soldiers had been killed or injured during combat operations in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSeveral 7th SFG(A) Soldiers were injured or killed during combat operations in Afghanistan on February 8, 2020. The families of the deceased and wounded are being notified. In accordance with DoD policy, the names of the causalities are being withheld until 24 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Sherzad resident Najeebullah\u2014who goes by one name\u2014gunfire could be heard coming from an Afghan security forces base nearby late Saturday followed by immediate air evacuations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe heard the sounds of gunfire and immediately helicopters landed inside the base and evacuated the casualties,\u201d added Najeebullah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘Investigating’ attack<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n No group immediately claimed responsibility for the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid later declined to comment on the incident, saying in a message sent to AFP only that the insurgents were \u201cinvestigating\u201d the attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year was the deadliest for US forces in Afghanistan since combat operations officially finished at the end of 2014, highlighting the challenging security situation that persists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Depending on how one qualifies combat deaths, about 20 American troops were killed in 2019. Since the US-led invasion in October 2001, about 2,400 US troops have been killed in combat in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In December, Taliban infiltrators in the Afghan military killed nine Afghan soldiers in central Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July, an Afghan soldier killed two US troops as they were visiting an Afghan army base in Kandahar. Such insider attacks are sometimes called \u201cgreen-on-blue\u201d incidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That came two weeks after another Afghan soldier shot and killed an influential Afghan army colonel while he was conducting a security assessment in Ghazni province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has been negotiating with the Taliban for about 18 months for a deal that would see the Pentagon pull thousands of troops from Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In return, the Taliban would guarantee the country is not used as a jihadist safe haven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many are sceptical of the proposed deal and Trump himself declared talks \u201cdead\u201d in September amid continued Taliban violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Negotiations have since resumed in Qatar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two American troops were killed and six others wounded by an Afghan soldier armed with a machine gun, the US military confirmed on Sunday. The deaths come at a sensitive time in the 18-year-old war, with President Donald Trump eager to bring troops home and end the longest conflict in US history. The incident occurred late Saturday at a base in Sherzad district,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4043,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042\/revisions\/4043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}