NATO soldier loses life in northern Afghanistan

A soldier serving with the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has died as a result of a non-battle cause in the violence-plagued northern Afghanistan.

The NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) mission said in a statement on Wednesday that the latest death is not related to the ongoing unrest and skirmishes in the Asian country’s northern province of Kunduz, where Taliban militants have taken full control of the provincial capital city with the same name.

The takeover of the city of Kunduz, located 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the country’s capital, Kabul, came on Monday.

NATO did not provide the name and the nationality of the soldier.

The military alliance’s so-called Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, consisting of 13,000 foreign soldiers, was launched on January 1, 2015 with the declared aim of training Afghan forces and counter-terrorism operations. It replaced NATO’s combat mission in Afghanistan, which ended its activities last December.

At least eleven service members of the Resolute Support, including eight US soldiers, have lost their lives since the beginning of the current year