A member of the Afghan National Army killed a US soldier late last night. From the ISAF press release:
An individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against coalition service members in southern Afghanistan late yesterday, killing one service member.
The individual who opened fire was killed when Coalition forces returned fire. A joint Afghan and USFOR-A team is investigating the incident.
It is USFOR-A policy is to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities.
Eighteen ISAF soldiers have now been killed by members of the Afghan National Security forces since the beginning of the year. The last such attack that resulted in the death of ISAF personnel took place on March 26. On that day, three ISAF soldiers were killed in two separate incidents.
ISAF will not publish the overall number of attacks by Afghan forces on ISAF troops, including attacks in which a soldier is wounded but not killed, or in which no one is hurt. One such attack took place on April 16; ISAF troops killed an Afghan soldier after he opened fire on their convoy. No ISAF troops were reported to have been killed or wounded in that attack. ISAF told The Long War Journal that the information about the overall number of attacks by Afghan forces on ISAF troops is “classified.” See LWJ report, Afghan security forces kill 3 ISAF troops in south, east for more information on the “green on blue” attacks.
Update:
Reuters reported that it was an Afghan commando who killed a US Special Forces soldier and an Afghan interpreter:
An elite Afghan soldier shot dead an American mentor and his translator at a U.S. base, Afghan officials said on Friday, in the first rogue shooting blamed on the country’s new and closely vetted special forces.
The soldier opened fire at an American military base on Wednesday in Shah Wali Kot district, in volatile Kandahar province, said General Abdul Hamid, the commander of Afghan army forces in the Taliban’s southern heartland.
“The shooting took place after a verbal conflict where the Afghan special forces soldier opened fire and killed an American special forces member and his translator,” Hamid told Reuters.
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7 Comments
How many have died this year due to Afghan homicide?
This is just friggen infuriating! This kind of stuff was NOT happening when I was working in Marine Spec Ops and working with SEALs and SBS soldiers and Afghan commandos two and a half years ago. We had some very isolated incidents but not the kind of regular types of “Green on Blue” attacks we are seeing now, and never did we have an elite Afghan trooper turn his gun on us even when we got into disagreements with them (which wasn’t infrequent). To see a proud member of the vaunted Green Berets get killed by a cowardly surprise attack by a punk Afghan “wanna-be” commando is disgusting. Thank god they killed this guy before he did more damage. Now the US Special Forces are going to have to have “Gaurdian Angels” of their own to combat this crap. Very sad situation.
It is quite common for foreign allied forces or friendly forces to send troops to the United States for advanced training of one kind or another. Does anyone know if any of these Afghan troops are brought Stateside for training? Obviously, since any one of them could be a ticking time bomb, we would want them kept overseas.
As I have said, when our MSOR was doing combat operations with the SEALs, SBS and Afghan commandos, we never had any hint of “Green on Blue” incidents. Even when we had disagreements with our Afghan comrades (which was not uncommon). So this is pretty new stuff to me. We need to find a way of dealing with these problems rationally before some hot-headed Afghan pulls a gun.
One wonders if the accelerated troop withdrawal and turnover to ANSF ordered by the CinC has caused the vetting standards and process for recruitment and training of personnel to be compromised.
Its time to leave. This is horrible. You can’t turn ur back on them.
ArneFufkin – I know from personal experience that vetting standards have in fact declined. Having spent nearly a year there in 2011 training ALP, I can attest to the fact that with the drawdown looming, the pressure from the top to fill the billets was immense. Right now the USMIL has a very blind eye, so to speak, as it tries to create the illusion that the time is right for withdrawal.