Two U.S. service-members were killed while conducting an operation in Afghanistan on Friday, according to the NATO-led military coalition in Kabul.
“The incident is under investigation and we have no additional information to provide,” a spokesperson for Operation Resolute Support told CNN.
The operation reportedly took place in the Kunduz Province in northern Afghanistan, carried out jointly by U.S. and Afghan forces. The names of the two dead are not being made public until their families have been notified. Their deaths bring the total up to four U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan since the year began. At least 65 U.S. service members have died in Afghanistan since January, 2015, when Operation Resolute Support began.
The over 13,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan are intended to train, advise, and assist local Afghan forces in combating the Islamic State and the Taliban. In December, President Trump promised to bring home at least half of them.
“We have won against ISIS,” Trump said at the time in a video message posted on Twitter. “Our boys, our young women, our men — they’re all coming back, and they’re coming back now.”
The president has also said he will withdraw the approximately 2,000 troops now stationed in Syria. The Senate last month approved a bill that included a rebuke of his decision and warned against a “precipitous” withdrawal of troops from either area.
“It would recognize the dangers of a precipitous withdrawal from either conflict and highlight the need for diplomatic engagement and political solutions to the underlying conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan,” Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said of the measure.