The Pentagon has identified the two Army soldiers who died from enemy fire in Afghanistan on Thursday as Capt. Andrew Byers and Sgt. 1st Class Ryan Gloyer.
Byers, a 30-year-old soldier from Rolesville, North Carolina, and Gloyer, 34 years old from Greenville, Pennsylvania, died on Thursday in the Kunduz Province of "wounds sustained while engaging enemy forces," the Pentagon said in a statement on Friday afternoon.
Both soldiers were assigned to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) based in Fort Carson, Colorado.
The deaths of the special forces troops were first revealed on Thursday morning by the NATO-led Resolute Support mission, which said they came under fire when helping Afghan partners clear a Taliban position and disrupt insurgent operations in the provincial capital of Kunduz.
The Pentagon later said that four U.S. service members were also wounded in the incident and that Afghan forces also died.
According to the Wall Street Journal, three Afghan special forces members were killed during the joint operation targeting the Taliban in Kunduz. Additionally, about 30 Afghan civilians were killed in U.S. air strikes called in to support the forces under fire from insurgents.
The two soldiers were the latest in a string of American fatalities in Afghanistan.
The soldiers were part of the U.S. mission to train, advise, and assist local Afghan forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. President Obama marked an end to combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of December 2014. Since then, the Taliban have continued to make gains in the war-torn country as U.S. and allied forces have withdrawn.
Obama was forced to decelerate his plan to draw down American forces in Afghanistan earlier this year, leaving 8,400 service members in the country through his final days in office.