At least one Afghan police officer turned his gun on NATO troops at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan before dawn on Sunday, killing four international service members before escaping, a spokesman for the international military coalition said.
It was the latest in a string of insider attacks by Afghan forces against their international counterparts that are threatening the military partnership between Kabul and NATO, a partnership that is key to the handover of security responsibilities to Afghan forces as international troops draw down. The day before, a gunman in the uniform of a government-backed militia force shot dead two British soldiers in the south.
Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the international military in Afghanistan, said details of the attack were slow to come out because it took place in a remote part of southern Afghanistan. He said the attacker was still at large but it was unclear if there were multiple assailants.
“The attack took place in the vicinity of an outpost in southern Afghanistan. It is my understanding that it was a checkpoint,” Mr Graybeal said. International forces often work with Afghan police to man checkpoints as part of the effort to train and mentor the Afghan forces so that they can eventually operate on their own. The goal is to turn over all security responsibility for the country to the Afghans by the end of 2014, though numbers of NATO forces have already been reduced in some areas.
The coalition said in a statement that they are investigating what happened. The statement confirmed the deaths but did not provide details or nationalities. NATO typically waits for the nations contributing troops to identify their own dead.
There were also international troops wounded, Mr Graybeal said. He said that early reports showed two were hurt and that they were receiving treatment. He did not say how serious the injuries were.
So far this year, 51 international service members have died at the hands of Afghan soldiers or policemen or insurgents wearing their uniforms. At least 12 such attacks came in August alone, leaving 15 dead.
Keywords: NATO, NATO soldiers, insider attack, Afghanistan, International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, US Marines
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Afghans don't need foreigners to teach them how to run their own country.
The world needs a global fair economic order, wherein the affluent nations return
some of their ill gotten wealth from colonial times.
The world continues to be unfair and skewed heavily in favour of industrialised
nations, who love to stay rich for ever.
Afghans should learn to move on and restructure their society, empowering their
women, educating them, and get more secular.
While greed of the literate and advanced nations has made the world an insecure
place, wrong interpretation of Islam is acting as a noose against progress in
Afghanistan.
Whether the big powers have learned any lessons from such interference or not, has become irrelevant now, but the insurgents have really matured through such compaigns. Vietnam is history, Iraq seems to be falling in line but at a very heavy cost, and now Afghanistan is continuing its war against foreign occupancy. In addition to their extreme obstinacy to fight USA and its llies, is learning very fast to compensate its weakness by Jehad , infiltration in enemy's camp successfully and keeping flame its cadres flame alive.
I must tell I am against all sorts of religiosity, but same time admit the Afghani's commitment to throw foreign yoke. USA may not be brought to its knees like exn USSR but this compaign has a positive outcome that the undeveloped nations's masses are not going to accept big nations hegemony.
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