AFGHAN POLICE OFFICER KILLS 6 U.S. SERVICE MEMBERS
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/29/afghan-police-officer-kills-6-nato-service-members/print/
Afghan police officer kills 6 U.S. service members
U.S. Army and Afghan army soldiers attached to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, congratulate each other during a training program graduation in Panjwai district in Afghanistan‘s Kandahar province on Monday, Nov. 29, 2010. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
By Heidi Vogt and Rahim Faiez
-KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan border police officer opened fire on U.S. troops during a training mission in the east of the country Monday, killing six American service members before he was shot dead, U.S. and Afghan officials said.
The shooting — the highest toll for NATO forces since nine Americans died in a Sept. 21 helicopter crash — was the latest in a series of shootouts in which Afghan security forces have turned on their NATO partners.
The attack also highlights the potential hazards of a push to speedily expand Afghanistan’s army and police forces in the next few years. The goal is to turn over the responsibility for nationwide security to Afghan forces by 2014 so that NATO troops can go home.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the gunman joined the border police in order to kill foreign soldiers.
U.S. Army and Afghan army soldiers attached to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, congratulate each other during a training program graduation in Panjwai district in Afghanistan‘s Kandahar province on Monday, Nov. 29, 2010. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
By Heidi Vogt and Rahim Faiez
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Associated Press
Updated: 1:55 p.m. on Monday, November 29, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan border police officer opened fire on U.S. troops during a training mission in the east of the country Monday, killing six American service members before he was shot dead, U.S. and Afghan officials said.
The shooting — the highest toll for NATO forces since nine Americans died in a Sept. 21 helicopter crash — was the latest in a series of shootouts in which Afghan security forces have turned on their NATO partners.
The attack also highlights the potential hazards of a push to speedily expand Afghanistan’s army and police forces in the next few years. The goal is to turn over the responsibility for nationwide security to Afghan forces by 2014 so that NATO troops can go home.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the gunman joined the border police in order to kill foreign soldiers.
“Today he found this opportunity and he killed six invaders,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement e-mailed to the media.
The shooter was wearing an Afghan border police uniform, NATO said, but the international coalition did not provide additional details on how the shooting happened or the shooter’s identity.
A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemeri Bashary, confirmed that the gunman was a border police officer rather than an insurgent who had donned the uniform to infiltrate government forces.
The incident happened in Pachir Wagam district of Nangarhar province — right on the border with Pakistan, Mr. Bashary said.
NATO declined to identify the nationalities of the victims, but a U.S. official said all six of the dead were American. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the next of kin had not yet been informed.
An investigation team has been sent to the area, said Gen. Aminullah Amerkhail, the regional border police commander for eastern Afghanistan. But he said information is not coming back quickly.
“The area is very remote,” he said. “Even the telephones are not working there.”
There have been a number of incidents in which Afghan police officers turned on their trainers in deadly shootouts.
NATO is investigating an incident in which two U.S. Marines were killed earlier this month in southern Helmand province, allegedly at the hands of an Afghan army soldier.
On July 20, an Afghan army sergeant got into an argument at a shooting range in northern Afghanistan and shot dead two American civilian trainers before being killed. Another Afghan soldier was killed in the crossfire.
In a July 13 attack, an Afghan soldier stationed in the south killed three British troopers, including the company commander, with gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade in the middle of the night.
Also, in November 2009, an Afghan policeman killed five British soldiers at a checkpoint in Helmand. A month earlier, an Afghan policeman on patrol with U.S. soldiers fired on the Americans, killing two.
In the past year, the Afghan police force has grown 27 percent to 120,500 officers from about 95,000. The army has grown 42 percent to about 138,200 soldiers from 97,000.
Associated Press writer Elizabeth A. Kennedy contributed to this report.
Comments
I think that, in trying to train Afghans to operate professional military and paramilitary police forces, our forces are trying, in essence, to train Neanderthals for that role. To create a modern military or police force, there has to be a common service culture and stable institutions respected by all in that society. Afghanistan is more of a geographical concept than it is a nation state as most would understand it. We’re trying to train a medieval, tribal, clan-based illiterate society to become one based on sound government and universally respected laws and customs. I doubt very strongly that America has either the time or the limitless treasure to train such a lawless, primitive barbaric society to become a nation state with an honest civil service, stable democracy, just courts, and a professional army and police force to protect it from threats from within and without. That fact is increasingly obvious to more and more people. The question is “what to do about?” Well, why did we get involved in Afghanistan in the first place? The answer, of course, was to drive out al-Qaeda and remove their Taliban supporters from power. In all of this, that’s really the bottom line for us. Seems to me that the best, least costly option is “Chaosistan” —– we pull out, and do what great powers have done for millenia with barbarian tribal societies —- play them off each other such that no one gains power over the other, and such that they are incapable of gaining enough power to confront us. We arm one faction, then another when the previous gets to intransigent or too uncooperative. We use our air power to tip the balance for one side, then the other, ignoring the news media’s attempts to portray this as brutal. It’s a cynical strategy that basically condemns Afghanistan to unending civil war with that nation partitioned amongst self-serving warlords —- one that will condemn thousands of Afghans to death through war, famine, disease, and poverty. But at least it won’t be Americans dying, and it’s really just letting Afghans do what comes naturally for them —- fighting and killing each other whenever there’s not a common foreign outside enemy to fight against.
@Here_We_Go_Again, the Soviets tried draconian tactics like the ones you call for. As history has shown, that didn’t work out so well for them —- merely drove new recruits into the arms of the Mujaheddin. The Afghans may not have much of a sense of nationhood as we understand it, are incapable of governing themselves, but absolutely cannot tolerate any bit of being dominated by foreign outsiders. They hate that more than even genocidal tactics against them.
Sadly, given the nature of the place and the people who live there, one has to use more traditional methods for them to interact with Western forces. When someone joins the Afghan police or military, keep track of their home village and family. Immediately after an attack like any of these, drop a fuel air explosive bomb on their village. When their family and often their entire clan will be killed for their actions, they will be better behaved. It will also make it a lot harder for the Taliban to talk them into this kind of activity.
“Today he found this opportunity and he killed six invaders,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement e-mailed to the media.
The shooter was wearing an Afghan border police uniform, NATO said, but the international coalition did not provide additional details on how the shooting happened or the shooter’s identity.
A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemeri Bashary, confirmed that the gunman was a border police officer rather than an insurgent who had donned the uniform to infiltrate government forces.
The incident happened in Pachir Wagam district of Nangarhar province — right on the border with Pakistan, Mr. Bashary said.
NATO declined to identify the nationalities of the victims, but a U.S. official said all six of the dead were American. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the next of kin had not yet been informed.
An investigation team has been sent to the area, said Gen. Aminullah Amerkhail, the regional border police commander for eastern Afghanistan. But he said information is not coming back quickly.
“The area is very remote,” he said. “Even the telephones are not working there.”
There have been a number of incidents in which Afghan police officers turned on their trainers in deadly shootouts.
NATO is investigating an incident in which two U.S. Marines were killed earlier this month in southern Helmand province, allegedly at the hands of an Afghan army soldier.
On July 20, an Afghan army sergeant got into an argument at a shooting range in northern Afghanistan and shot dead two American civilian trainers before being killed. Another Afghan soldier was killed in the crossfire.
In a July 13 attack, an Afghan soldier stationed in the south killed three British troopers, including the company commander, with gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade in the middle of the night.
Also, in November 2009, an Afghan policeman killed five British soldiers at a checkpoint in Helmand. A month earlier, an Afghan policeman on patrol with U.S. soldiers fired on the Americans, killing two.
In the past year, the Afghan police force has grown 27 percent to 120,500 officers from about 95,000. The army has grown 42 percent to about 138,200 soldiers from 97,000.
Associated Press writer Elizabeth A. Kennedy contributed to this report.
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