NATO Bulletin and Update:Three More US Troops Die in Ghazni,Afghanistan Blast;Initial Review of Nimruz Province Incident Indicates Friendly Fire

NATO's Resolute Support Mission has issued two news releases today on US fatalities in the Afghan War,one of them updating yesterday's release on the death of SGT Leandro A.S. Jasso;the other reports a separate,later incident which occurred on 27 November 2018.
The new incident:
Word has been received that three more US service members were killed in action on 27 November 2018,this time near the city of Ghazni,which is south of the Afghan capital,Kabul.They died in an IED explosion that was claimed by the Taliban Islamist extremists.Three more troops were wounded,as was a civilian contractor.The wounded personnel were medevaced out for advanced treatment.Further details are pending family notification.*
The update:
An initial review of the 24 November 2018 incident that took the life of SGT Jasso of Leavenworth,Washington State shows that he likely died of friendly fire,NATO explained.SGT Jasso was accompanying members of the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces on an assault of multiple barricaded al-Qaida shooters.In the close quarters combat that ensued,it is believed that an ANDSF member mistakenly shot SGT Jasso.There is no evidence of a green on blue attack (insider attack) in this case.
In the words of Resolute Support and US Forces-Afghanistan commander GEN Austin Scott Miller:
SGT Jasso was killed defending our nation,fighting al-Qaida alongside our Afghan partners.All of us,and throughout our Coalition of 41 nations,recognise the threats posed by groups such as al-Qaida and ISIS and are determined to fight them here.*
The two lethal incidents bring the total US troop losses in the Afghan War this year to 13.

Intel Gathering Over Syria Begins-possibly with the U-2 spy plane

We have a fundamentalist state in the center of the Middle East,General Michael V. Hayden,US Air Force Retired,former director of both the CIA and NSA,said of the Islamic State-also called ISIL or ISIS.We have got to take the wood to ISIS and clearly make them less capable.It's a government and an army.We need to begin to treat ISIS territory the way we have treated Waziristan,the Islamic militant stronghold in Pakistan,making them wary about their own security.*
There was genuine grief,genuine anger in the President's statement on the beheading of the journalist James Foley by ISIS in Syria.The question I have is,what are we going to do about it?I think we have to do more to degrade them.The tide of war is not receding.We might have to do it with some of our own forces on the ground,GEN Hayden noted.*
President Obama has just ordered the beginning of reconnaissance flights over Syria,a precursor to possible airstrikes on the Islamic State heartland.The militants had seized an airfield in Northern Syria on Monday.You have no allies to speak of in Syria;zero intelligence in Eastern Syria where ISIL is concentrated,said Bob Baer,formerly with the CIA.*
A possible choice to carry out at least some of the recon is the Lockheed U-2 spyplane,which can fly at 70,000 feet,day or night and in all-weather.It has superior cameras and sensors to the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone.The House Armed Services Committee has forbidden the expenditure of funds on the retirement,planned retirement or storage of the U-2 in its 2015 budget markup.*
U-2 units that could be tasked with Syrian overflights are the US Air Force 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron out of Al Dahfra Air Base,UAE;or the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron Detachment 3 out of RAF Akrotiri,Cyprus.*
Lockheed Martin(LMT)