Attack Kills U.S. Service Member in Eastern Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — An attack on Monday in eastern Afghanistan killed one American service member and wounded another in the second U.S. military combat death this year in the enduring war.

The U.S.-led international mission in Kabul announced the casualties but did not identify the troops, pending notification of their next of kin. Several Afghan soldiers were also killed in what the U.S. military deemed a “combat operation.”

Roughly 14,000 U.S. troops are spread across Afghanistan in a war that is now in its 17th year. The forces are split between training the Afghan military to fight the Taliban and hunting terrorist organizations, such as the Islamic State’s affiliate in the country, which is known as the Khorasan group.

In eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military has been fighting the Khorasan group since 2015 — shortly after the extremists began seizing large pieces of territory from the Afghan government and the Taliban.

On Jan. 1, Sgt. 1st Class Mihail Golin, a Green Beret, was killed and four other soldiers were wounded in a gunfight in Nangarhar province. The area is one of the Islamic State’s remaining holdouts in the country’s east.

Of the 11 U.S. troops who were killed in Afghanistan in 2017, more than half of them died in Nangarhar province.

Pentagon officials believe the Khorasan group has dwindled to 1,000 to 3,000 fighters after U.S. airstrikes and ground offensives.

But the extremists have still launched deadly attacks in the country’s capital: On Monday, the group claimed a twin bombing in Kabul that killed at least 25 people.