US Diplomat Killed: US Afghanistan Diplomat Anne Smedinghoff, 25, Died 'Doing What She Loved'

Anne Smedinghoff, a State Department diplomat, was among five Americans killed in a bomb attack on Saturday in Afghanistan. The group, included a civilian and three soldiers, was a delegation accompanying the governor of Qalat, the capital of Zabul province, on a trip to inaugurate a new school when a suicide bomber struck their convoy.

Smedinghoff, 25, hailed from the Chicago suburb of River Forest, Ill., the daughter of an attorney and the second of four children. She was a 2009 graduate of Johns Hopkins University, where she majored in international relations and became a co-organizer of the high-profile annual Foreign Affairs Symposium in 2008. She joined the US Foreign Service after graduating.

In a statement, her parents said her first assignment was in Caracas, Venezuela, after which she volunteered for an assignment at the US Embassy in Kabul in July 2012. "She particularly enjoyed the opportunity to work directly with the Afghan people and was always looking for opportunities to reach out and help to make a difference in the lives of those living in a country ravaged by war," her parents wrote, adding, "We are consoled knowing that she was doing what she loved".

Already fluent in Spanish, Smedinghoff was preparing to learn Arabic - first for a year in the US, then in Cairo - before she embarked on a two-year assignment in Algeria. Her Afghanistan assignment, where she was a press officer, was slated to finish in July.

Coworkers remarked on her discipline and fearlessness - while in Caracas, friend and Baltimore attorney Sam Hopkins noted in an article in the New York Times, she felt strongly about leaving the embassy's secure compound and go about the city. Friends and family said that in Kabul, she disliked being locked inside the embassy, even though it kept her safe from the attacks which plagued the capital. And her father described how he and other family members would tease her about finding assignments in London or Paris, she would say such peaceful locations would bore her.

Smedinghoff was the first U.S. diplomat killed on the job since Ambassador Christopher Stevens and four others were killed in an attack on a compound in Libya this past September. Two weeks ago, Smedinghoff worked with Secretary of State John Kerry on a control team in Afghanistan. Kerry called her "vivacious, smart, capable, [and] chosen often by the Ambassador there to be the lead person because of her capacity." Friends and relatives this weekend replaced their profile photos on Facebook with a picture of a black ribbon featuring the State Department seal in honor of her service.