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Subscribe to RSSThree Marines were killed instantly, and the fourth was seriously wounded but the gunman escaped. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.
Updated at 12:35 p.m. ET: KABUL, Afghanistan -- A man wearing an Afghan army uniform shot and killed three American Marines, the U.S. military command said Friday. Afghan officials said the victims were American special operations forces troops.
Reuters reported that an Afghan police commander opened fire on the service members after inviting them to a meeting to discuss security. A U.S. military official confirmed the three deaths and said another service member had been injured during the incident.
NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski reported that a "lone gunman" remained on the loose and was being hunted. U.S. military officials said all of the American victims were Marines.
Citing Afghan officials, Reuters said the American special operations forces members were killed late Thursday while attending a meeting in the Sarwan Qala area, in what appeared to be a planned attack by rogue Afghan forces.
"The commander was Afghan National Police in charge of local police in Sangin," a senior Afghan official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Sangin is a district of Helmand province.
"It looks like he had drawn up a plan to kill them previously," the official added.
A military official told NBC News' Courtney Kube that it was unclear whether the gunman was a member of the Afghan security forces or whether he was just wearing a uniform.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone that the attacker, whom he identified as a member of Helmand police named Asadullah, had been helping U.S. forces train Afghan local police troops. However, the Taliban has made false claims about the details of attacks in the past.
A U.S. military official says three American service members were killed and one was wounded after a gunman opened fire on them. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
The attack is the third killing this week of coalition soldiers by Afghans who are training to take over responsibility for security once most international forces leave in 2014.
So-called "green on blue" shootings, in which Afghan police or soldiers turn their guns on their Western mentors, have seriously eroded trust between the allies.
According to NATO, there have been 24 such attacks on foreign troops since January in which 28 people have been killed. Last year, there were 21 attacks in which 35 people were killed.
Senior Army leader slain
Earlier, the Pentagon confirmed that three U.S. service members -- including a senior Army leader -- and an American aid worker were killed Wednesday by a suicide bomber in Kunar province.
The victims included Command Sgt. Maj. Kevin J. Griffin, the most senior enlisted soldier for the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. Griffin, 45, of Riverton, Wyo., was a Bronze Star recipient who first enlisted in the Army in 1988.
Maj. Thomas E. Kennedy, 35, of West Point, N.Y., and Air Force Maj. Walter D. Gray, 38, of Conyers, Ga., were also killed. USAID foreign service officer Ragaei Abdelfattah was identified as the other victim.
On Tuesday, two gunmen wearing Afghan army uniforms killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two others in Paktia province in the east.
And on Thursday, two Afghan soldiers tried to gun down a group of NATO troops outside a military base in eastern Afghanistan. No international forces were killed, but one of the attackers was killed as NATO forces shot back.
NBC News' Courtney Kube, Jim Miklaszewski and Atia Abawi, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Ahmad Jamshid / AP
More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.
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I'm fed up with this garbage. What we need is every bomb we have to be dropped on Afghanistan and then get the hell out of there. Those people, the whole region, really, are a lost cause. Let them all burn and be done with it. It will certainly get the message across that people/countries/sects/insurgents/extremists/terrorists who mess with the US will not see another sunrise. If that's what they want, we should deliver it to them by the truckload. Level the whole damned place. Make a parking lot of the mountains.
Special Message to Obama: YOUR friends are killing MY American brothers. Enough is enough.
Whom ever it was posted about TAPI Project, please read Wiki and find it has nothing to do with any americn intrests. You spoke of Bush, but you do not know what you post about. Sad to be so indoctrinated by the left.
arming afghan police with a hundred thousand weapons (M 16s )smacks of warmongering...This crazy military decision to arm crazy people is just that.....Insanity.....and you supplied them with ammunition only an M 16 can fire.....the Assault Kalashnikov can also fire the M 16 bullet (round)! so we armed the religious zealots who hate any foriegn power in their country! those so- called police are filled with taliban recruits who do just what they joined for,........ A free weapon to kill us with....then they slip into the mountains with night vision binoculars and boxes of Ammo and assault rockets.....tiem to vote out the traitors in both parties!
tom its both parties that take turns running this plutocracy...they pit us against each other so they can rob us all....7 trillion in corperate welfare and not near that much( 1/100th ) to care for the poor and elderly........hopefully one day you dont find yourself voting away your rights! you will be old fast.
we need to level the places over there that are a threat then just leave. Those animals don't want our help, let them blow eachother up. Personally I find the fault to lie with our own restrictions on our forces (ROE for one); and our one-sided compromise with the Afghan Government. Really, wasting money on unappreciative governments is getting to be a bad and costly habit; but when those wasted dollars change to wasted lives.... It's time to rethink our commitment.An AAfghanistan'sploce commander with several of his men killed the 3 US Special Forces men in the southern Helmand province turning their guns on them .They were invited for dinner to discuss the security issuesn the province.(Sarwan Qala area). The police commander is an Afghanistan National Police Force police.Also a foreign soldier and 7 civilians were killed by a roadside bomb earlier in Helmand prov. Thursday and in the eastern province of Kunar 3 US soldiers and an US Aid worker also on Thursday. So far this year (2012)since January there have been 24 such attacks (green on blue= Afghani soldiers/police killing NATO soldiers)total 28 killed (+3 Spec.Ops). In 2011 there were 21 attacks and 35 killed. Very little attention is being paid in US for this 'Forgotten War' it seems and in the meanwhile Obama adm. is releasing Taliban soldiers back .
Their blood stains Obamas hands, he is so stupid as to think you can make deals with these people!
Small Pox, yup small pox and go home. waste 1/2 of all ME(nope not Maine)
@Robert Patterson:
Yes, that's it.
Give al-Qaeda a sample of smallpox to culture and weaponize.
Brilliant idea.
That couldn't come back to bite us in the ass at all.
First the U.S takes Indochina over from the French and gets involved in the Vietnam civil war, thousands of Americans are killed and we lose the war, billions in the pockets of the ceo's of the "military industrial complex." Now the U.S. takes Afghanistan from Russia, in a matter of speaking, thousands of Americans killed, and we are now mired in that cesspool in a war we will not win. Billions in the pockets of the ceo's of the '' military industrial complex." Its a lost cause the U.S. will never learn its lesson as long as there is money to be made from war and disposable American troops.
Dear Newsvine. How about a "thumb's down" button for us to use when someone's comment is just too darned stupid to waste key-strokes on.
The Russians had it right they just ran out of money before they killed enough afgans. How did we win the West?? lesson learned
So where's the OUTRAGE huh?
Why Don't I hear Clinton screaming at Karzai for this abomination?
I heard more whining from Karzai over burned Qur'an s than dying Americans, so please explain to me again why are we there? Why do we give a damn about those scumbags?
Lets turn it into a glass desert and be done with that whole pile of @#$^.
when are you gonna learn about these wars... we have the history of the world to show what happens in these type of wars, yet the foolish and ignorant get to decide to make the same mistakes the previous generations made.....it will never end because about every 30 years, the same patternsemerge as far as global conflict is concerned.....the next one will wake you up.....