A Green Beret killed by an improvised explosive device Tuesday was patrolling with an Afghan special forces team moving on foot against the Taliban, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Kabul said Thursday. Army Staff Sgt. Matthew V. Thompson was on a NATO advisory mission on the outskirts of embattled Lashkar Gah. Thompson, 28, of Irvine, California, was assigned to Company "A," 3rd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. He was in an advisory role under NATO's Resolute Support mission, but his death came in what was described as combat.
In a video briefing from Kabul to the Pentagon, Army Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland referred to statements in May by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on how non-combat missions can quickly turn into combat in Afghanistan and elsewhere. "These are non-combat missions," Cleveland said, but Afghanistan is inherently dangerous and troops assigned forward as advisers can often "find themselves in combat situations." A second U.S. soldier was wounded by the IED blast that killed Thompson and six Afghans. "He's still here in Afghanistan, still receiving treatment. He is stable," Cleveland said of the wounded soldier, without describing his injuries further.
Staff Sgt. Matthew V. Thompson, 28, of Irvine, California, died Aug. 23, 2016, of wounds received from an improvised explosive device while on patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
U.S. troops acting as advisers also moved forward with Afghan Ministry of Interior forces in response to the militant attack on the American University in Kabul on Wednesday that killed at least 16 and wounded dozens, Cleveland said. However, the U.S. advisers were not believed to have entered the campus where two gunmen shot bystanders after a suicide car attack on the front gate, he said. Cleveland disputed local and international media reports that the university attack and the threat to Lashkar Gah in southeastern Helmand province are only the latest incidents in a deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.
Cleveland acknowledged that the Afghan National Defense Security Forces are taking casualties at a pace that exceeds that of 2015, when more than 20,000 were killed or wounded in what was the worst year for them since U.S. troops first entered Afghanistan in late 2001. "For many militaries, that would break their backs," Cleveland said of the Afghan casualty rate, but the Afghan forces continue to make progress despite the attack on the university, Taliban advances in Helmand and northern Kunduz, and the presence in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province of the ISIS offshoot called Islamic State-Khorasan province, he said. "Overall, we believe the ANDSF is performing better this year than last year. We believe generally they are on a positive trajectory," Cleveland said. "I don't want to sound like I'm understating the Taliban," Cleveland said, but "we don't believe the situation is as dire as portrayed in the press" in Helmand. "They have had some local successes. Overall, we do not believe Lashkar Gah is about to fall."
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