3 US service members killed in Afghanistan

Three U.S. service members were killed and three others were wounded on Tuesday when an improvised explosive device exploded near the city of Ghazni in Afghanistan, officials said.

The NATO-led Resolute Support mission said in a statement that a U.S. contractor was also wounded in the blast.

The wounded service members and contractor were evacuated and are being treated, the mission added.

No other details about the attack were immediately available.

{mosads}The three service members killed in the attack were not immediately identified, as the Department of Defense typically waits 24 hours to make such information public.

The attack came just days after an Army sergeant from Washington state was killed by a member of Afghanistan’s security forces in an apparent accidental shooting.

More than 2,400 U.S. forces have died in the Afghanistan conflict since it began 17 years ago.

Now the U.S.’s longest-running war, the conflict in Afghanistan now largely centers around American forces assisting Afghan security forces against militants aligned with the Taliban and Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the region.

An insider attack from a member of the Afghan security forces killed the mayor of North Ogden, Utah, earlier this month during his deployment with Utah’s National Guard regiment.

In September, U.S. military command announced the death of Abu Saad Orakzai, the top-ranking ISIS leader in the country as result of a U.S. airstrike.

–Ellen Mitchell contributed to this report, which was updated at 8:25 a.m.