An American soldier killed in Afghanistan

One American soldier was killed and two wounded, Saturday, July 7, in southern Afghanistan, " apparently " announced the operation of NATO Resolute Support (RS) in a statement that does not specify where this attack took place, but promises more details later.

However, an Afghan police officer specified that the incident occurred at the Tarinkot airport, the provincial capital of Uruzgan where the Taliban are very active and active

NATO refers to a "apparent attack from within" which means that one or more Afghan soldiers opened fire on American instructors who train and mentor government forces. On Twitter the Taliban have announced that "Afghan patriot opened fire on Americans in Uruzgan killing and wounding at least four of them" .

Saturday's shooting took place a bit more than a year after the death of three American soldiers killed by an Afghan soldier in the province of Nangarhar, eastern Afghanistan. Such attacks, called "green against blues" during which Afghan soldiers or badailants wearing Afghan uniforms shoot at elements of the US military or the international coalition, were characteristic of the Afghan conflict, even though their frequency has decreased in recent years.

This is the second American soldier killed in Afghanistan since the beginning of the year. The previous one was killed in fighting in Nangarhar Province, in the east, on 1 ^and January. Four others were wounded in the Achin district, a bastion of the Islamic State group that has since been largely taken over by Afghan and US forces. In 2017, eleven American soldiers had been killed.

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14,000 troops present in Afghanistan

Some 14,000 American troops are deployed in Afghanistan to support the Afghan forces they train and accompany in operation as part of the fight against terrorism. They constitute the bulk of the 16,000 men of Operation Resolute Support, commanded by US General John Nicholson, who is preparing to give way to US Special Forces General Scott Miller.

Since the end of 2017, the new Nicholson's strategy targets in particular heroin trafficking, one of the Taliban's main sources of income and targets opium processing laboratories and export routes, mainly in the south of the country. For the Taliban the Americans and the Western forces are invaders whose departure they demand before any peaceful settlement.

The Afghan war, in progress for 17 years, is to date the longest in the US Army who lost more than 2,400 men in the country and recorded about 20,000 wounded.

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