Two US Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan

Soldiers killed by small-arms fire in battle with Taliban

Two US soldiers were reported killed Wednesday in a firefight in Afghanistan. This brings the number of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year to nine.

Details are somewhat conflicting, with the two soldiers, part of a Special Forces team, killed by small arms fire in a fight with the Taliban. US officials claimed the fight was in southern Uruzgan Province, while the Taliban said it was in eastern Wardak Province.

It isn’t clear why the two sides offered different accounts of where the fight happened, and it’s worth noting that the two provinces in question don’t even border one another. Early reports suggested that the Taliban had ambushed the US troops.

With 9 US troops killed in only the first half of 2019, their casualties are tracking a multi-year high. 13 were killed in 2018, and 11 more were killed in 2017. Though this is below the highs of early in the war’s first decade, the tolls have been rising over the past couple of years.

This reflects the Trump Administration’s decision to escalate the war in 2017. The war continues to rage, and while talks are ongoing for the US to leave the country, US officials are quick to insist no deals have been reached.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.