Bomb kills GI on Afghan patrol

Another hurt in blast near city threatened by Taliban

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A U.S. soldier was killed by a bomb near the southern Afghan city of Lashkar Gah and another was wounded, officials said Tuesday, days after more than 100 U.S. soldiers arrived there to help plan the strategic city's defense amid weeks of losses to the Taliban.

In a statement, the U.S. military said the service member had died of "wounds sustained during operations near Lashkar Gah," the capital of Helmand province, when a patrol was struck by an improvised explosive device.

"We are deeply saddened by this loss but remain committed to helping our Afghan partners provide a brighter future for themselves and their children," Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was quoted as saying.

It was the second time a U.S. service member was killed by hostile fire in Afghanistan this year, as the force there has mostly drawn down to a smaller advisory mission. In January, Staff Sgt. Matthew McClintock was killed in Marjah district, also in Helmand province.

The return of U.S. forces under the NATO mission to Lashkar Gah, more than two years after British soldiers who were part of the same mission closed their last base in the city, highlights a scramble to prevent the fall of a major population center. For weeks before that, top Afghan generals were sent from Kabul to hold the line as district after district came under attack, with the Taliban surrounding the city.

Even as area Afghan officials were reporting the presence of U.S. personnel near the battlefield in the Chah-e-Anjir area, about 10 miles from the city, U.S. military officials in Kabul insisted that the new team was there only to advise the leadership of the southern police zone based out of Lashkar Gah.

"The troops that have gone down there are really focused on force protection of the advisers there, to make sure they are secure," Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, told reporters Monday. "What you won't see is -- they are not about to go out and conduct operations."

On Tuesday, Cleveland said, "The service members killed and wounded today were not a part of the new advisory mission in Lashkar Gah," suggesting that they were part of the regular advisory support the NATO mission has been providing Afghan special operation forces, often traveling with them on their raids.

As the top generals were busy in Helmand, the northern city of Kunduz, which was briefly overrun by the Taliban last fall, once again faced strong offensives at its gates. The district of Khan Abad briefly fell to the insurgents, and fighting raged less than a mile from the city center.

Residents of Kunduz city could hear constant airstrikes into the early hours of Tuesday, with bombings focused on trying to push back the Taliban from Zar Khared, an area less than 2 miles from the city center. A small group of U.S. advisers is based at the airport in Kunduz, but local officials said Tuesday that they had not left the outpost to join operations.

Most of the roads leading to Kunduz province remained blocked Tuesday, and ground operations for recapturing the lost territories had not started despite continuous airstrikes, Afghan officials said.

The chaotic nature of the Afghan defense was once again on display after the fall of Khan Abad district. It was quickly taken back by an array of Afghan forces, each led by a high-profile official.

The governor of next-door Takhar province was in the lead, marching in with his local forces and firing from a machine gun mounted on an armored vehicle as at least five other security personnel watched -- clearly a show of force. He returned to Takhar to a hero's welcome, received with gifts and flowers.

U.S. military officials have attributed much of the Afghan forces' struggle in fighting to leadership woes in the face of Taliban offensives that they say normally amount to no more than 20 to 30 insurgents trying to overrun a vulnerable checkpoint.

"In a perfect world, would you have senior military leaders moving around like that? Perhaps not," Cleveland said. "But at the end of the day, we find that most of the challenges facing the Afghan national defense and security forces are tied to leadership. We think it's a positive thing to have good, strong leaders that are willing to get out, set an example, as well as take charge of what is going on."

Information for this article was contributed by Taimoor Shah of The New York Times and by staff members of The Associated Press.

A Section on 08/24/2016

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