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Waseem Naikzad / AFP - Getty Images
Afghan security force sit on top of a military vehicle in Laghman province Wednesday. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Tuesday he was very concerned about the rise in insider attacks on US and NATO troops, and the impact they are having on cooperation with Afghan allies.
News analysis
KABUL, Afghanistan – A group of U.S. Marines in Helmand province was invited to dinner by a local police commander and his men late last week. A little after midnight, under the dark Afghan sky, the Marines left the police compound and were shot in the back as they walked away. Three were killed.
Last week, seven Americans lost their lives after Afghans they were working with turned their weapons on them.
The military is now designating these incidents in which Afghan troops turn on coalition counterparts as "insider attacks," (they were once called "green-on-blue" incidents) to account for the non-security personnel also involved in the assaults.
Insider attacks are now at the highest level they have been since the start of the war.
Three US special ops troops killed, Afghan officials say
In 2007 and 2008 there were four such attacks and four deaths.
So far this year, there have already been 29 incidents in which Afghans turned their weapons on their coalition partners, killing 37. That’s compared with a total of 21 incidents, in which 35 were killed, in all of 2011.
The spike has startled many and brought calls to find the catalyst for the deadly problem.
Jose Cabezas / AFP - Getty Images
Members of the Afghan National Army are helped by a US soldier as they participate in a map reading training session at Narizah base in Narizah, Khost Province, on August 12, 2012.
Who or what is to blame?
One group that would seem like the obvious culprit is the Taliban. They have claimed to infiltrate the Afghan National Security Forces, consisting of both the military and police, to help kill NATO troops from the inside.
Last year, the group called on more Afghans in uniform to join their cause and turn their weapons on the “foreign invaders” because of their access and proximity.
NATO does not deny some of the attacks have been from Taliban insurgency infiltration – but they attribute the trend to more than that.
Seven American troops killed in Afghan chopper crash
“There was infiltration; that is correct, we can acknowledge that,” said Brig. Gen. Gunter Katz, spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force based in Kabul. However, he said most of the attacks could be blamed on more basic warfare issues.
“The main reasons for those green on blue incidents are personal grievances, stress situations and what we call battle fatigue,” Katz said.
Hoshang Hashimi / AP
More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.
He attributes about 10 percent of the insider attacks to Taliban infiltration, and blames the remaining 90 percent on individual motives.
However, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged the Taliban are somewhat to blame for the attack earlier this week.
“The reality is, the Taliban has not been able to regain any territory lost, so they’re resorting to these kinds of attacks to create havoc,” Panetta told reporters in a Pentagon briefing Tuesday, according to Stars and Stripes.
Panetta later said there is “no one source” responsible for the attacks, and that there are several reasons why Afghan forces would turn on coalition troops.
Cultural divide
A former commander of the Afghan Border Police, Gen. Aminullah Amarkhil, blames the attacks on a disrespect of the Afghan culture by foreign forces.
“The main reason for these attacks is that the foreign troops have on many occasions humiliated the Afghan culture and religion,” Amarkhil said. “They’ve entered Afghan homes without permission, killed innocent civilians, they’ve bombarded wedding parties, they’ve entered our mosques with dogs, burned the Holy Quran. All of these are the factors that have contributed to the Afghan army or police being infiltrated by people who have been humiliated by the foreign troops.”
The Afghan general admitted it is not just the fault of NATO, adding that the insider attacks are also because of the weakness in the Afghan National Security Forces’ recruitment system.
“We don’t have a proper procedure for recruitment in our army or police. There are people in the Afghan army who have come from Pakistan and have made Afghan identity cards, " said Amarkhil, explaining that loyalties can be divided.
Training on Afghan culture
Amarkhil believes more should be done to show respect for the Afghan culture and religion by the foreign forces. And ISAF says they are doing just that.
“We continue to improve this process further and further in order to teach our guys [about] ‘what is Afghan culture.’ What can be done, what must not be done,” Katz said. “We are very serious about that.”
In the meantime, ISAF has implemented force protection measures to help prevent more insider attacks. Katz would not elaborate on what those measures are.
“We permanently assess the environment our soldiers are working in and assess if the current force protection measures are still in accordance to our assessment. And if not, we change them.”
But Katz says that these incidents, although tragic, are isolated.
“We had a very bad week last week,” he says. But he believes for the most part there is trust between the Afghan and international forces.
“The more we fight together, the more we trust each other.”
NBC’s Fazl Ahad contributed to this report.
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What are we there for anyway? The opium trade? We're already in cahoots with the cartels for meth, coke, and weed. The U.S. looking for a monopoly?
Why are we there? For the UNOCAL oil/gas pipeline route to feed the bankrupt EU Caspian sea oil/gas supplies to the reconstituted colonists. The slimebag United Snakes have suceeded once (Libya) and now they are going for the gold - and, of course, the $2 trillion's worth of strategic mineral resources the West covets more and more each day throughout Afghanistan and maybe even Pakistan.
Gee - it's like asking why did the Jews fight against Rome!
The Jewish cowards didn't fight against Rome. At Masada the unpardonable cowards committed group suicide when they saw the broad swords the Roman Legionaires had sharpened the night before to castrate the sissy bastards - Even today, they have the Great Satan taking out their enemies big and small. Hell, the only people they fight are Palestinian kids tossing rocks at their 90 ton steel clad Merkava tanks and their US supplied F-16s and Apache helicopter gunships help defend the gutless bastards from their own shadows.
During her tour in Afghanistan Dr. Susan Angel over saw the creation of several women's health and treatment centers. It was truly a great piece of work. The result of the effort made a potential to give help where there was nothing before. After a while the women leaving the centers were stoned and beaten. Now the centers have been completely destroyed. Many of you brass band all the wrong and hurt things we have done and none of you mention the good things we did. Moreover there is a failure to identify that the positive things we have done are being destroyed by the Afghan people. So how is it unexpected that Afghans kill us? They have done what they have done and will do even more in the name of their pedophile prophet. They will happily die if means killing some of us infidels for the sick theocratic islam.
Yup, and in the 1920s women couldn't vote in America. They were 'beasts of burden' for the thugs and murders that had come to Injun country' looking for freedom and more acrage where they could stack black slaves to the ceilings of their barns. Yassar, 'nothing new under the sun' as they say, huh Pilgrim?
CowBaby,
You are not just a liar, it is obvious that your mental health is in grave question.
Cowboy you are crazy haha I agree with you on that one! And that is only a few instances.
Either the Afgans are just getting tired of the Americans or the Taliban has found a weakness that they can take advantage of. Could be that the Afgans working for the Americans know that in a little while the Americans will be gone and they are going to have to explain to the Taliban why they were working for the Americans. Only the connected will be able to leave with the Americans, with their bags full of kickbacks and bribes.
You see the little broken bodies, their parents torn to shreds, their sheep, cows, chickens and donkey's pilverized by 200 lbs. of TNT on the tip of a horrendous AGM-117 Hellfire missile fired from an undiscriminating control console manned by a low life mass murderer some 10,000 Kms. away, this 'piece-of-@!$%#' hero who then goes home to watch the Olypmics like nothing has happened to a poverty stricken family of six 10,000 Km away who are found at the bottom of a nine foot hole in the ground where the missile hit - and now you ask, Why?! If you don't know by now how genocide is received by the victims then FU MF'ers - we'll show you with the tip of an AK-47 and a few rounds of RPG-7 rocket grenades!
Like the bastard Jews in Palestine - 'You reap what you sow!' So, bend over and kiss yours asses good-bye. Your 'gig' is up - The best is yet to came!
By the way AZLIAR here in Arizona we use miles to measure distance, not kilometers.
Don't make him mad. He'll "pilverize" you.
Wow, I'm no big fan of the Jews but last time i checked they don't make our wars or preach hate, we have our home grown Evangelical Christians for that.
And the Democrat agenda of deception to advance social equity.
It's been 11 years, we killed Bin Laden. Time to leave.
i have said it before, i will say it again--all along we have been training "them" to kill our troops. could that have been what happened to the helicopter that crashed and burned today?
We are only some 10 years into this war and we have high ranking officials commenting that we are not teaching fundamental Afghan cultural lessons to our service memebers - sounds to me like a failure of the highest magnitude and a gross violation of one of the biggest rules in counterinsurgency warfare. WTF?
If we have failed to accomplish such basic things as this by year 10, we might as well regard this mission a failure and come home because we are never going to 'get it.' Doubling down is a gambler's fallacy, and there are no do-overs in war.
Where the hell are all the dumb ass protesters demanding we leave Afghanistan? It's Odumbo's war now so I guess it's okay to waste lives of American troops. You people that constantly piss and moan about GOP and Tea Party should bitch a little about your beloved Dumbocrat party hypocrits of en.ormous magnitude. If you're not an Independent you have no brain. Oh, I forgot, you cn't fix STUPID!!
Bring the Troops Home, Obama. You have become the murderer now.
Typical NBC dishonesty. The terrorists who are murdering coalition forces are Islamic extremists who have infiltrated the Afghan army. NBC, try telling the truth once in a while. You might get to like it.
Isn't that pretty much what they said?
Why are the people of the United States not rising up and demanding an end to this war? It is useless and is another Vietnam!!
The answer, very simple, Muslims killing Infidels. They would like to do the same to every man, woman and child who will not accept their religion. End of story.
You can't fight these guys on their soil forever. The British couldn't do it, the Russians couldn't do it, we are going BROKE doing it.
Bin Laden has been disposed of. Isn't that what invading Afghanistan was all about? They are a tribal society. They don't want our democracy at the point of a gun.
And just like in Vietnam, they disappear into the population and attack when the mood suits them. We all know how that turned out.
All the money we spend training these @#$%$!@#@ and they turn on us. Our politicians have their heads up their you know what. Why can't they see that we are fighting both side's in Afghanistan?? Our soldiers are being Murdered, and that's all it is, Murder. And why is our government bringing Afghans into OUR country??? It's Insane.
This is not rocket science, folks. Follow the lead of the German army (in Nis, YU). Line up the school kids and take out every tenth one. The people will force the skunks to stop summarily, believe me.
But, oh no! That would be inhumane. OK, then. Let them keep on killing our american youth!
What do you think the Taliban are doing to them already?
So, you want our military folks to act like nazi Germans. Real classy there, dude, not to mention stupid.
The main reason Afghan troops are killing American and Nato troops id they don't want them in there country-plain and simple.We must get out of this sewer country-what do we have to gain being there-is it for having our military tere like it was a military base for other reason like attacking Iran,I say we get completely out,cut the money we give Pakistan and become military allies with India-that would be the best thing to do.Pakistan and Afghanistan are to peas in a pod-really both are the same country.We have killed bin Laden and a whole bunch of Al Qiadia so we must get out-too many troops have been killed or their bodies all messed up and think about all the money it has cost us,while we have been fighting there the Chinese have signed a deal with Afghanistan for mining.We have bases close enough to fly over both of these countries to kill bad guys,our troops have pulled way too mant tours in Iraq and Afghanistan-not fair or right-why did the government start a draft but they could care less.When we do leave it will go back to how it was before we sent troops,the muslims hate us for being there and do you think we can truely trust muslim for the Quran says it's ok to lie to non believers-not muslims.
What do you expect from the culture that exists in a country still living in the dark ages! Nation building does not work when the citizens could care less about being free or becoming educated. They prefer to live this way and we should let them! Why waste valuable american lives for a country that does not want to fight for their freedom. They deserve to mire in their own juices! It is time to bring our warriors home and time to get America strong again by more jobs and less debt. Keep our military the strongest in the world so the idiots who want to attack think long and hard.
First we must get new leadership in our country to bring back prosperity!
It's time to pull all American troops out of Afghanistan now. It can be done in a matter of a few months. It is a useless war and is causing to much money and to many young Americans lives. We went to Afghanistan to get OBL and his lieutenants, which has been accomplished. The Taliban will take over as soon as we leave, we are negotiating in secret anyway.
Where are all the left wingers, that constantly yelled about President Bush and the War, now that it is Obama's war? More Americans have died in Afghanistan in the 3 and half years Obama has been President than the 7 years of the Bush Presidency. Where is the MSM reports about daily casualties and pictures from Dover of the military coffins coming home? Remember Obama owns this war now, he surged 30,000 troops and he has promised we will remain until 2014 and continue to provide money until 2024.
Obama and his supporters like to say the killing of OBL was one of his greatest foreign policies. What a bunch of BS.
Another reason it's known as "The graveyard of empires".
Also another reason it will remain a backward, brutal, miserable place to live. A shining example of how religion can make life wonderful.
Oh my. There are organizations out there that are willing to train US military in Afghan and Pakistan cultural norms yet the green US military and WWII mentality generals don't think this is necessary. And this Katz guy obviously doesn't have a clue. There are rules that have to be followed in Islam, including a meal, including talking about their wives, including turning away from the host, including infidel behavior... the US needs to use the services of those organizations that have experience in this immediately!
Everyone is right and everyone's wrong. We need to get the hell out of there. This is not what I voted for Obama. Nothing could make me vote for Romney, but this war is absurd and futile.
WhAT do you think! OMG, terrorism, nepotism, and communism! Russia is paying us back, and the Taliban is supported by the Gov. and the people, al la VietNam! GET the F out NOW! stupid. I guess Obama has done nothing to ingratiate the TAliban or muslims, I thought he said they would love us? they love GWB more!!!!
Give the civilians 24 h ours to leave the country---search all "civilians" leaving----yes check and see if any military are wearing burkas over their uniforms ---then blow the country to allah.
islam wants to take over the world---ifyouhaven't read the koran yet --do so. until islamis eliminated formt eh face of the earth there will be no "peace and tolerance"
They're freaking Muslims killing the infidel. No further questions needed.
Did you know that the Mormons call non believers Infidels? It is true ask one, if he is honest he will tell you.
"What's leading Afghan troops to turn on coalition forces?"
They probably listen to liberals on NBC and think the U.S. is an evil entity.
Doug, You are absolutely right. The MSM gives aid and comfort to the enemy by talking about how wrong our troops are and that we shouldn't be there.