The Pentagon on Monday identified a Special Forces soldier killed in Afghanistan over the weekend while fighting an affiliate of the Islamic State group.
Staff Sgt. Mark R. De Alencar, 37, of Edgewood, Maryland, was mortally wounded late Saturday in Nangarhar province when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire during combat operations, according to a Defense Department release.
The fighters were part of ISIS-Khorasan, which operates in Afghanistan where the United States has been battling the Taliban since 2001.
Nangarhar province, on the eastern border near Pakistan, has been been a base of operations for ISIS since 2015, according to the military.
