GHAZNI, Afghanistan — Three American soldiers were killed on Tuesday in a bombing in Afghanistan, the U.S. military said, in the worst loss of life in the country for the United States this year. Three other soldiers and an American contractor were wounded.
The deaths took place near Ghazni City, in the southeastern province of the same name, from the detonation of a roadside bomb, the military said in a statement. A witness said the bomb went off as a U.S. convoy passed on the highway.
“The convoy set off a roadside mine, and there was smoke all over the place. It nearly took our lives, too,” said the witness, Haji Abdulamin, a local resident. “The road was blocked, and a few minutes later helicopters landed and took the dead.”
A taxi driver named Hamed who was on the highway said he saw a U.S. vehicle that had been destroyed by the bomb. “The situation was not good, and the helicopters were bombing the area,” he said. “I think six or seven Taliban were killed too.”
The Taliban issued a statement claiming responsibility for the late morning attack.
The events came only three days after another American soldier was killed in the southwestern province of Nimroz during a fight with militants linked to al-Qaida, the military said in a statement. The military also said that the soldier, Sgt. Leandro A.S. Jasso, a 25-year-old Army Ranger from Washington state, was shot accidentally by a soldier from an Afghan “partner force.” It added, “There were no indications he was shot intentionally.”
The three soldiers killed on Tuesday were not identified, in line with U.S. policy to wait until 24 hours after the next of kin are notified, but they were believed to be part of a Special Forces unit fighting the Taliban in Ghazni province. The military said the four Americans who were wounded in the explosion were evacuated for medical treatment.
It was the worst attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan this year. It brings to 13 the number of service members who have been killed in 2018.