Injured U.S. soldier dies days after IED attack in Afghanistan

USPA News - A U.S. soldier from New York who was injured in a bomb blast in southern Afghanistan earlier this month has died of injuries while undergoing treatment in Germany, the U.S. Defense Department announced on Saturday. It raises the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year to 394. Staff Sgt.

Nicholas J. Reid, 26, of Rochester, New York, was injured on December 9 when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device (IED) in Sperwan, a village in Kandahar province in Afghanistan`s volatile south. He was flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany where he died of his injuries on Thursday. Because neither the U.S. military nor the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) releases details about service members who are injured, it is not known if there were other victims in the December 9 attack. Reid was assigned to the 53rd Ordnance Company (EOD), 3rd Ordnance Battalion (EOD) at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington. The death on Thursday raises the number of coalition troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year to 394, according to official figures. A total of 566 ISAF troops were killed in Afghanistan in 2011, down from 711 in 2010. A majority of the fallen troops were American and were killed in the country`s south, which is plagued by IED attacks on troops and civilians. There are currently more than 102,000 ISAF troops in Afghanistan, including some 68,000 U.S. troops and 9,500 British soldiers. U.S. President Barack Obama previously ordered a drawdown of 23,000 U.S. troops by the end of this year, and 22,000 of them have already left in recent months. Foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.