Taliban attack claims rare U.S. casualty
Two servicemembers killed this year
WASHINGTON An attack on a NATO base in Kabul last week killed an Army Green Beret, the second U.S. servicemember to die in combat in Afghanistan this year.
The Pentagon on Sunday identified the soldier as Master Sgt. Peter McKenna Jr., 35, of Bristol, R.I. He died Saturday, in Kabul after militants attacked Camp Integrity, near the airport. McKenna was assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group, which specializes in training local forces. In April, an attack claimed the life of a soldier near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in an interview Sunday he had met McKenna and last saw him at a July Fourth ceremony in Rhode Island. Reed recalled McKenna as a “wonderful man” and an “extremely competent” Green Beret who had qualified for Special Forces as a communications specialist and worked his way up.
“He was a soldier’s soldier,” Reed said.
The Pentagon’s casualty releases, a staple of news when the wars raged in Iraq and Afghanistan, have diminished greatly. Four other troops have died while deployed this year throughout the Middle East, although the military attributed their deaths to “non-combat” causes. At least 35 U.S. troops have been wounded in Afghanistan this year.
Friday’s attack on Camp Integrity also killed eight Afghan contractors and wounded several other U.S. troops and contractors, Col. Brian Tribus, a military spokesman in Kabul, said in a statement. Four insurgents were killed and the camp was secured.
About 9,800 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan, down from a peak of 100,000 in 2010. Their official “combat mission” ended last year, but a portion of those who remain conduct counterterrorism operations. The rest train and advise Afghan forces who have been battling a stubborn Taliban insurgency. All but about 1,000 U.S. troops are scheduled to leave Afghanistan when President Obama’s term ends in 2017.
Forty civilians were killed and 300 wounded Friday, the most casualties since 2009, when the U.N. began tracking them.