Roadside bomb kills 3 troops from US

KABUL, Afghanistan — Three U.S. service members were killed Tuesday when a roadside bomb detonated next to their vehicle in the embattled province of Ghazni, U.S. military officials said.

Three other U.S. service members were wounded, as was a U.S. military contractor, the U.S. officials added. The survivors were evacuated from the area for medical attention. The names of the dead and the injured were not immediately released.

Separately, the military said Tuesday that a preliminary review has found that an Afghan commando fatally shot a U.S. Army Ranger on Saturday in an apparent accident during a raid on a compound in remote Nimruz province’s Khash Rod district. Sgt. Leandro Jasso, 25, died later that day at a military hospital at Camp Dwyer, a coalition installation in neighboring Helmand province.

The operation was somewhat unusual because the coalition said it came against al-Qaida militants rather than Islamic State fighters, who are more typically targeted.

Earlier this month, U.S. Army Maj. Brent Taylor was shot dead in an insider attack by an Afghan commando he was training in Kabul. This month’s five deaths bring the number of U.S. troops killed in combat in Afghanistan this year to 13.

U.S. military officials said the attack Tuesday took place during a military patrol near Ghazni city, which has remained tense and unstable since Taliban forces overran it and held it for four days in August, leaving more than 100 people dead.

Aref Noori, a spokesman for the Ghazni governor’s office, said a joint military operation by Afghan and NATO troops had been underway in a village southeast of Ghazni city Tuesday when the bomb struck an armored military vehicle carrying foreign forces.