A soldier from the Utah National Guard was killed and 11 others injured Wednesday during an operation against Islamic State forces in eastern Afghanistan, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert confirmed.
A 12-member team from the Utah National Guard was working to clear a wired building in Nangarhar province when the incident took place, Herbert said during a news conference in Thursday on the incident.
“The building was booby trapped,” Herbert said. ”There was an explosion.”
The explosion killed one service member and left the other 11 members ”injured in various degrees,” Herbert said.
Afghan forces that had partnered with the Utah National Guard on the mission were also injured, Resolute Support, the NATO mission to train and advise in Afghanistan, said in an earlier release.
Utah has about 130 soldiers and airmen deployed to the U.S. Central Command area of operations, the governor’s staff said.
Identification of the service member was pending notification of next of kin, the military said.
"My heart aches for the loss and sacrifice of our members and their families," Maj. Gen. Jefferson Burton, adjutant general of the Utah National Guard, said in a statement. "I know that what we do is dangerous and important work for our country's defense, but this realization does little to console me during times of loss such as this."
Wednesday’s incident brings the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 11, the same number as were killed in all of 2016 in Afghanistan.
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Tara Copp is a Pentagon correspondent for the Associated Press. She was previously Pentagon bureau chief for Sightline Media Group.
