Deaths, U.s. Troops | featured news

Two days after the U.S. military resumed joint operations with Afghan security forces last week following a spate of “insider attacks,” a platoon of American soldiers stopped at an Afghan army checkpoint in a volatile eastern province.

Insurgents shot down a helicopter in Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans, most of them belonging to the Navy SEALs unit that killed Osama bin Laden, U.S. officials said.

A NATO helicopter crashed during an operation against the Taliban near the Afghan capital late Friday night, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office said 31 U.S. troops and seven Afghan soldiers were killed.
A second coalition helicopter was forced to make a precautionary landing in another part of Afghanistan, local officials and a spokesman for the multinational forces said Saturday.

Suicide bombers detonated two explosives-laden vehicles early Tuesday near a government compound south of Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and wounding dozens, Iraqi officials said. The attacks come as Iraq’s top political factions started to discuss in earnest whether to ask some of the U.S. troops to stay beyond the Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline because of the security situation.

Two men including a US soldier have been shot dead at Frankfurt airport. The gunman, believed to be from Kosovo, opened fire on a bus containing US troops in front of Terminal 2. The bus driver and a soldier were killed and two others, thought to be soldiers, were seriously injured.

The U.S. military confirms the two leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq have been killed in a joint operation with Iraqi forces.

Eight U.S. service members working for the NATO-led force and one Afghan civilian were killed in multiple bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the alliance said in a statement.