KABUL: An Afghan soldier turned his gun on American troops at a checkpoint in the country’s east, killing two Americans and at least two fellow members of Afghanistan’s army in a shooting that marked both the continuance of a disturbing trend of insider attacks and the 2,000th US troop death in the long-running war, officials said Sunday.
The string of insider attacks is one of the greatest threats to NATO’s mission in the country, endangering a partnership key to training up Afghan security forces and withdrawing international troops.
Saturday’s shooting took place at an Afghan army checkpoint just outside a joint US-Afghan base in Wardak province, said Shahidullah Shahid, a provincial government spokesman.
“Initial reports indicate that a misunderstanding happened between Afghan army soldiers and American soldiers,” Shahid said. He said investigators had been sent to the site to try to figure out what happened.
An Afghan official speaking on condition of anonymity said three Afghan soldiers were killed in the clash. It was not clear if the assailant was among the dead.
The attack happened about 5 p.m. in Sayd Abad district, Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi said in an e-mailed statement. He did not provide further details, saying he would wait for a report from investigators.
NATO forces announced the assault early Sunday morning, saying only that it was “suspected insider attack” and that a NATO service member and civilian contractor were killed.
One US official confirmed that the service member killed was American, while another confirmed that the civilian was also American. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the nationality of the dead had not yet been formally announced.
Afghan soldiers and policemen — or militants in their uniforms — have gunned down more than 50 foreign troops so far this year, eroding the trust between coalition forces and their Afghan partners. An equal number of Afghan policemen and soldiers also died in these attacks, giving them reason as well to be suspicious of possible infiltrators within their ranks.
The attacks are taking a toll on the partnership between international and Afghan forces, prompting the US military to restrict operations with small-sized Afghan units earlier this month.
The close contact — with coalition forces working side by side with Afghan troops as advisers, mentors and trainers — is a key part of the US strategy for preparing the Afghans to take the lead in security operations as the US and other nations prepare to pull out their last combat troops at the end of 2014, just 27 months away.
The number of American military dead reflects an Associated Press count of those members of the armed services killed inside Afghanistan since the US-led invasion on Oct. 7, 2001.
Attack kills 4 troops in Afghanistan, brings US death toll to 2,000
Attack kills 4 troops in Afghanistan, brings US death toll to 2,000
Russia says seized a dozen Ukrainian villages in February
MOSCPW: Russia’s army chief Valery Gerasimov visited Moscow’s troops in Ukraine and said the Kremlin’s forces seized a dozen eastern villages in February, the defense ministry said Sunday.
Gerasimov visit comes days before US-mediated talks with Kyiv in Geneva on ending almost four years of war and ahead of the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale offensive against Ukraine.
“In two weeks of February, despite severe winter conditions, combined forces and military units of the joint task force liberated 12 settlements,” Gerasimov said.
AFP could not independently verify these claims.
The pace of Moscow’s advance picked up in Autumn, but Russia has not reached its goal to seize the Donetsk region in four years of war.
Russia demands that Kyiv withdraw from the Donetsk region for any deal to end the conflict — terms unacceptable to Ukraine.
Gerasimov said Moscow’s troops were moving in the direction of Sloviansk — an industrial hub that briefly fell to pro-Russian separatists in 2014 and which has been under frequent Russian attack.
Moscow’s forces are around 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the city.
Moscow claims the Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions as its own.
But it has also advanced into other Ukrainian regions.
Gerasimov said Russia was “expanding a security zone” in border areas in the northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv region, where it controls pockets of territory.
The army chief also said he would discuss with officers “further actions in the Dnipropetrovsk direction.”
Russian forces crossed into the Dnipropetrovsk region last summer in their push westwards — but the Kremlin has never laid an official claim on the region.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said Moscow is intent on seizing the whole of the Donetsk region by force if diplomacy fails.
