This archive report was first published on 11 January 2020.
On January 11, 2020, a devastating roadside bomb explosion in southern Afghanistan claimed the lives of two American service members and left two others wounded, marking the first U.S. military fatalities in the country that year.
The incident occurred in Kandahar Province, where the victims were conducting operations as part of the American-led NATO mission known as Resolute Support, according to a statement from the U.S. military command in Afghanistan.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for the attack, which highlighted the ongoing violence in the region.
Twenty American service members were killed in Afghanistan last year, and more than 2,400 U.S. troops have died in combat since the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, according to the website icasualties.org.
The attack comes as the leaders of the Taliban are considering whether to comply with the U.S. demand that they reduce violence in the country as a condition for reaching a preliminary peace agreement.
President Trump abruptly called off peace talks in September 2019, after a Taliban attack killed an American soldier and 11 others. He announced the resumption of negotiations in November 2019, during his first visit to Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, Afghan officials said the U.S. conducted drone strikes in western Afghanistan, targeting and killing a commander of a Taliban splinter group. The commander, Mullah Nangyalay, had ended his relationship with the main Taliban a couple of years ago.
