Smedinghoff is the first American diplomat to die on the job since the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic installation in Benghazi, Libya. The 25-year-old Foreign Service Officer was killed in a car bomb blast in southern Afghanistan. Smedinghoff was one of five Americans killed in a suicide bomb attack in Qalat, Zabul Province. Working as a press officer for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, she was helping Afghan journalists cover an event at a school where the local Provincial Reconstruction Team was to donate math and science books. According to a press officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Anne absolutely loved the work she was doing. Her family and friends established a memorial fund at Johns Hopkins University.