Sacrificing Our TODAY for the World's TOMORROW
FATA is "Federally Administered Tribal Area" of Pakistan; consisting of 7 Agencies and 6 F.Rs; with a 27000 Sq Km area and 4.5 m population.
MYTH: FATA is the HUB of militancy, terrorism and unrest in Afghanistan.
REALITY: FATA is the worst "VICTIM of Militancy”. Thousands of Civilians dead & injured; Hundreds of Schools destroyed; Thousands of homes raised to ground; 40% population displaced from homes.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

8 U.S. Troops Killed by Afghan Military Officer (New York Times, 28 Apr 2011)

Courtesy: "New York Times", 28 April 2011

Afghan Military Officer Kills 8 U.S. Service Members

KABUL, Afghanistan — Eight American service members and a contractor were shot and killed by an Afghan military officer on Wednesday while they attended a meeting of foreign and Afghan officers on the military side of Kabul International Airport, according to statements from Afghan and NATO spokesmen. 
In addition, two NATO service members died in attacks elsewhere in Afghanistan, bringing the total NATO deaths on Wednesday to 10.

The shooting in Kabul occurred during a meeting between American and Afghan officers, said Col. Bahader, a spokesman for the Afghan Army Air Corps. NATO did not confirm the nationalities of the soldiers. None of the dead were Afghan troops, said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense.
The gunman was an older officer named Hamid Gul, who had been trained 30 years ago when the Soviet Union occupied the country, according to senior Afghan Army aides. The Afghan Army declined to speculate on his motives.
“You cannot read someone’s mind,” said Colonel Bahader, who, like many Afghans, uses only one name. He described a chaotic scene in which some soldiers and officers fled the barrage of bullets, jumping out of second- and third-floor windows.
They had minor injuries, and some were wounded by broken glass, he said.
The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, identifying the assailant as a Taliban militant named Azizullah from a district of Kabul Province. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said in a telephone interview that the assailant “was living in Kabul, and he got dressed in an Afghan military uniform, and when he ran out of ammunition he was killed by foreigners and Afghan soldiers.”
The Taliban sometimes claim responsibility for attacks even when they are not responsible for them. In this case it was impossible to know if the gunman might have had some Taliban connections or if he was psychologically disturbed or had a quarrel with American soldiers that precipitated the attack.
While intelligence officials say the Taliban’s claims of infiltration are often overstated, there has been a growing pattern of attacks by Taliban disguised in army and police uniforms and by Afghan soldiers and police officers who, for whatever reason, become disturbed or disgruntled with the foreign troops here and attack them.
Since March 2009, 48 NATO troops and military contractors have been killed in at least 16 attacks in which Afghans have turned their weapons on coalition forces, for reasons investigators later attributed to battlefield stress and personal animosity toward coalition soldiers, rather than Taliban infiltration.
Most recently, in mid-April, five Americans were killed when a suicide bomber in an Afghan Army uniform detonated his charge at a joint Afghan-NATO meeting at an Afghan Army base in Laghman Province. In November, six border police officers were killed by a rogue Afghan Army officer. Wednesday’s attack was the fourth in the past two weeks in which someone wearing an Afghan security force uniform struck from within a government compound.

Ray Rivera contributed reporting.

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Note: The viewpoint expressed in this article is solely that of the writer / news outlet. "FATA Awareness Initiative" Team may not agree with the opinion presented.
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