Jack Murphy writes at ConnectingVets:
A team from 7th Special Forces Group was ambushed today while conducting a Key Leader Engagement (KLE) in Sherzad, Afghanistan.
A source familiar with the events spoke to Connecting Vets about the incident, requesting anonymity.
KLEs are sit down meetings, often with village elders, and while they are not combat operations in of themselves, they can still be dangerous due to taking place in a semi-permissive environment like Afghanistan. The team from 7th Special Forces Group was a Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) partnered with Afghan Special Operations soldiers. The incident is being catagorized as green on blue, meaning that nominally allied Afghan forces attacked the ODA and their partner force. At this time two Americans are reported as killed in action and eight Afghan commandos are also reported killed in action.
Additionally, at least six more American troops were also wounded. The high number of casualties (17 as of this reporting) is attributed to the ODA/Afghan combined force coming under fire from a DShK, a Russian designed heavy machine gun which fires a 12.7mm bullet. The wounded have been evacuated to the appropriate field hospitals.
