The number of U. S. troops killed in combat in Afghanistan this year has now risen to 13. Five of those deaths occurred this month
KABUL, Afghanistan — Three U. S. service members were killed Tuesday when a roadside bomb detonated next to their vehicle in the embattled province of Ghazni, U. S. military officials said.
Three other U. S. service members were wounded along with a U. S. military contractor, they added. The survivors were evacuated from the area and are receiving medical attention. The names of the dead and the injured were not immediately released.
Separately, the military said Tuesday that a preliminary review has found that an Afghan commando likely accidentally shot a U. S. Army Ranger on Saturday during a raid on a compound in a remote part of the country. The U. S. soldier died later that day.
Combined, the deaths bring the number of U. S. troops killed in combat in Afghanistan this year to 13. Five of those deaths occurred this month.
U. S. military officials said the attack Tuesday took place during a military patrol near Ghazni city, which has remained tense and unstable since Taliban forces overran it in August in a four-day siege that left more than 100 people dead and parts of the city in ruins.
Aref Noori, a spokesman for the Ghazni governor’s office, said a joint military operation by Afghan and NATO troops had been underway in a village southeast of Ghazni city Tuesday morning when the bomb struck an armored military vehicle carrying foreign forces.
