Three U.S. Special Forces soldiers were killed in a Taliban bombing on November 27 when a roadside bomb went off near Ghazni City, the capital of Ghazni province in south central Afghanistan. Three other soldiers and an American contractor were wounded. It was the deadliest attack on U.S. service members in Afghanistan since 2017.
The New York Times quoted a witness to the attack, Haji Abdulamin, a local resident, who said the bomb went off as an American convoy passed by on the highway. “The convoy set off a roadside mine, and there was smoke all over the place,” said Abdulamin. “The road was blocked, and a few minutes later helicopters landed and took the dead.”
The Times noted that regular U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan came to an end in 2014, but since that time the Taliban have greatly expanded their reach. The have gained control of more territory and killed more Afghan soldiers and police than at any time since they were driven from power in 2001.
Back on November 8, CNN cited a quarterly report issued by the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction (SIGAR) for Congress stating that the Afghan government now controls or influences only 55.5 percent of the country’s districts, the lowest level recorded since SIGAR began tracking district control in November 2015. Back then, the Afghan government controlled 72 percent of districts in the country.
In an interview with the Washington Post on November 27, President Trump called the killing of three U.S. troops “very sad.” He said he was continuing the military presence in Afghanistan only because “experts” told him the United States needed to keep fighting there.
Prior to the attack that killed the three Americans, last weekend an Army Ranger, Sergeant Leandro Jasso, was wounded by small arms fire while conducting combat operations in the Khash Rod district in Afghanistan’s Nimruz province, and died on November 24 of his wounds. Jasso was likely shot accidentally by “friendly fire” from an Afghan partner force.
In an article posted by The New American in August, John F. McManus noted that the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan is under the control of NATO, a branch of the UN. Much like the wars in Korea and Vietnam, the war in Afghanistan is an effort that Americans and their allied coalition forces aren’t allowed to win.
Photo: AP Images
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