A man in an Afghan army uniform shot and killed a NATO service member on Saturday, and the Taliban said the assailant was a sleeper agent who had infiltrated the Afghan military.
Cases of foreign troops being attacked by rogue policemen and soldiers — or militants impersonating them — are on the rise as international forces are increasingly partnered with Afghan troops preparing to take the lead in security by the end of 2014.
The shooting was part of a spate of weekend attacks that killed at least nine people, including two other foreign troops. The nationalities of the slain foreign soldiers were not released.
Saturday’s shooting attack by the Afghan soldier took place at a military compound in Helmand Province that was occupied by both Afghan and coalition troops, an Afghan military official in the area said. He said the NATO service member was killed in his quarters and that the shooter got away before the victim’s body was discovered.
“This was our person,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said in a text message. “Now he is with us.”
The spokesman claimed that the gunman killed a total of five NATO service members. However, the US-led coalition reported the death of only one.
Rasool Safi, a spokesman for the Afghan National Army Corps 215 in Helmand Province, said he did not know whether the shooter was an enlisted solider.
Insurgents have often worn uniforms of Afghan security forces to get inside heavily guarded military bases and target international and government forces. Enlisted Afghan soldiers and police also have turned on their NATO and Afghan colleagues — sometimes because arguments have inflamed tensions or because of an alliance or sympathy with the Taliban.
In May, two US service members were killed by an Afghan policeman in Helmand Province. The two were mentoring an Afghan National Civil Order brigade and were shot and killed inside the police compound as they sat down to eat lunch.
Since March 2009, at least 40 coalition troops have been killed in more than 20 shootings by members of the Afghan security forces or assailants wearing Afghan uniforms.
In about half the cases, attackers impersonated Afghan policemen or soldiers, coalition officials have said. Afghan security force uniforms are easily obtained at stores in the capital of Kabul, despite efforts to crack down on such illegal sales. About 10 of the shootings were attributed to combat stress or unknown reasons.
It is not known how many members of the Afghan security forces have been killed in such attacks. In April, a man in an Afghan army uniform penetrated to the heart of the Afghan Defense Ministry in Kabul and gunned down two Afghan soldiers.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese