U.S. soldier reported killed in insider shooting in Afghanistan

A U.S. soldier was reported killed in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday after a visit to the area by a senior American diplomat, in what Afghan officials described as an insider shooting.

Afghan news media reported that at least two other U.S. soldiers were wounded when an Afghan soldier opened fire near the provincial governor’s compound in Jalalabad, east of Kabul. The Afghan soldier was killed in an exchange of gunfire with U.S. troops, according to provincial officials.

NATO forces in Afghanistan confirmed that a service member was killed but did not immediately disclose the soldier’s nationality.

State Department officials in Kabul said that no U.S. Embassy personnel were killed in the incident.

“The incident took place after a senior U.S. official held a meeting with the provincial governor,” embassy spokesperson Monica Cummings said. “All chief of mission personnel of the visiting party are accounted for.”

The U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, P. Michael McKinley, was in Kabul and not part of the visit to Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, embassy officials said.

It was the second attack this year in which an apparent Afghan service member turned his weapon on U.S. forces. In January, an Afghan in military uniform shot to death three U.S. contractors at a military facility inside Kabul’s international airport, before being shot and killed by security forces.

So-called insider attacks, which once were among the leading killers of international forces in Afghanistan, have diminished sharply in recent years as the foreign troop presence diminishes. Approximately 10,000 U.S. soldiers remain in Afghanistan.

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