Two U.S. service members were killed and another suffered a minor injury during a ground assault Wednesday against Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. military.
The U.S. forces were accompanying Afghan troops on the raid when they came under attack by the Islamic State's Afghanistan branch, known as the Khorasan group, in Nangarhar province in the country's east, according to Navy Capt. Bill Salvin, the U.S. military spokesman in Kabul. He said a number of Islamic State fighters were killed.
The U.S. and Afghan troops had flown in by helicopter, then advanced on foot. The raid was in Mohmand Valley, the same region where the U.S., two weeks ago, dropped what is called the "mother of all bombs" on an Islamic State, or ISIS, complex.
The bombing came just days after a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier was killed in the region. The bomb is the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the U.S., and it killed several dozen militants.
The U.S. has been battling the Islamic State group in Afghanistan for months and estimates that it now has about 800 fighters there.
"The fight against ISIS-K is important for the world, but sadly, it is not without sacrifice," said Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, referring to the Khorasan group.
Meanwhile, the United Nations reported Thursday that the number of civilians dying in Afghanistan's protracted 16-year war dropped slightly during the first three months of this year. In a surprising twist, more women and children are among the dead and wounded than in previous casualty reports.
The report blamed the increase in casualties among women and children on aerial attacks. According to U.N. figures, there were 148 casualties from aerial bombings in the first three months of this year compared with 29 last year. Casualties from unexploded ordnance, which seemed to claim mostly children, was also up slightly.
"It is civilians, with increasing numbers of women and children, who far too often bear the brunt of the conflict," said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for Afghanistan, in a release.
Although there was a 4 percent overall drop in casualties during the first three months of the year, the U.N. suggested the drop may be the result of Afghan civilians fleeing their homes. According to the report, there is an unprecedented number of Afghans displaced by war living inside the country. There are another 1.5 million Afghans living as refugees in neighboring Pakistan.
The U.N. blamed 62 percent of the civilian casualties on insurgents while ordinary Afghans caught in the crossfire accounted for nearly 35 percent of all casualties.
The Taliban and the Islamic State in Afghanistan are fighting each other and Afghanistan's security forces.
Earlier this week, a half-dozen Taliban attacked an army base in northern Afghanistan in one of the worst attacks against the security forces, killing as many as 140 soldiers.
The U.S. has about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan. NATO ended its combat mission in the country in 2014, and the primary role of U.S. troops is now to assist and train, though increasingly the U.S. has been called in by Afghan security forces for support.
The U.N. report accused anti-government elements, without specifying Taliban or the Islamic State, of intentionally targeting civilians.
"During an armed conflict, the intentional killing and injuring of civilians is a war crime," Yamamoto said in the release. "Anti-Government Elements must stop this deplorable practice and everybody must apply -- and respect -- the definition of 'civilian' provided by international humanitarian law."
A Section on 04/28/2017