Afghan ‘Ally’ Kills Two US Soldiers

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two U.S. soldiers were killed and six wounded in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province late Saturday when an Afghan soldier opened fire, the U.S. military said.

Afghanistan's defense ministry said one Afghan soldier was also killed and three injured in the shootout.

A member of Nangarhar's provincial council, Ajmal Omer, told The Associated Press that the gunman was killed. Neither the U.S. military nor the Afghan defense ministry have confirmed the attacker's fate.

The U.S. Department of Defense identified the dead American soldiers as Sgt. Javier Jaguar Gutierrez, 28; and Sgt. Antonio Rey Rodriguez, 28.

There have been numerous attacks by Afghan army soldiers on their allied partners during 18 years of America's protracted war in Afghanistan.

Six U.S. service members have been killed in Afghanistan this year, including Saturday's casualties. Last year, 22 U.S. service personnel died in combat there.

An Afghan defense ministry official said the shooter was an Afghan soldier who argued with the U.S. forces before opening fire. He was not a Taliban infiltrator, the official said.

In a statement, the U.S. military said "an individual in an Afghan uniform opened fire on the combined U.S. and Afghan force with a machine gun. We are still collecting information and the cause or motive behind the attack is unknown at this time."

Omer, the provincial council member, is from Nangarhar province's Sherzad district, where he said the incident took place.

The U.S. military said American and Afghan military personnel were fired on while conducting an operation in Nangarhar province.

Last July, two U.S. service members were killed by an Afghan soldier in southern Kandahar province. The shooter was wounded and arrested. In September, three U.S. military personnel were wounded when a member of the Afghan Civil Order Police fired on a military convoy, also in Kandahar.

The incident came as Washington has sought to find an end to the war in Afghanistan.

Washington's peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has been meeting with Taliban representatives in Qatar in recent weeks. He's seeking an agreement to reduce hostilities to get a peace deal signed that would start negotiations among Afghans on both sides of the conflict.

In his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Trump referred to the peace talks, saying U.S. soldiers were not meant to serve as "law enforcement agencies" for other nations.

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