Philadelphia – Jewish Sergeant Among Six American Troops Killed In Taliban Attack In Afghanistan

Philadelphia – One of the American troops killed in a suicide attack in Afghanistan was a 30-year-old Air Force investigator who hoped to join his family in the restaurant business after leaving the military, his mother said Tuesday.

Arlene Wagner told The Associated Press that her son, Staff Sgt. Peter Taub, was one of six Americans killed in the attack near Bagram Airfield on Monday. She said she was informed of his death on Monday night.

Taub, from Philadelphia, was assigned to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Detachment 816 at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. He’d been in the service for eight years and had recently re-enlisted.

He grew up in Wyncote, a Philadelphia suburb, and graduated from Cheltenham High School.

His father, Joel Taub of Philadelphia, said his son didn’t tell his family he was in Afghanistan because he didn’t want them to worry about him. He said they learned his actual location when military officials notified them he’d been killed.

Peter Taub was married and the father of a 3-year-old girl. His father said the couple has another child on the way.

Wagner and Taub’s brother, Jonathan, a chef, run a popular sandwich shop, Bub and Pops, in downtown Washington. The shop posted messages saying it would be closed this week because of Taub’s death.

An official of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia confirmed that Taub was Jewish.

Taub was deployed to Afghanistan in October. He grew up in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.

“He and his brother had plans for a farm and raising herbs and different things for expanding the restaurant or new concepts — lots of things that are not going to happen,” Wagner said in a brief interview.

She said she was heartbroken for the other five families who lost loved ones in the attack, which was the deadliest on international forces since August.

“I’m pretty devastated,” she added. “It’s really hard to talk about.”

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, in which a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden motorcycle into a joint NATO-Afghan patrol.

Also among those killed was a New York City police detective, Joseph Lemm.

In a statement, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter called the attack “a painful reminder of the dangers our troops face every day in Afghanistan.”