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Subscribe to RSSThe shooting deaths of two American soldiers in Kabul by an Afghan colleague are under investigation, with Afghan officials are saying it was an accident. NBC's Atia Abawi reports.
An Afghan soldier shot and killed two American soldiers on Monday during a dispute in Laghman province in Afghanistan. The Afghan soldier was then shot and killed by U.S. forces.
"ISAF troops returned fire, killing the ANA (Afghan National Army) soldier who committed the attack,'' the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
A senior military official in Kabul strongly disputes an Afghan military account which claims the two Americans were killed accidentally when the Afghan tripped on his weapon, which discharged and struck the U.S. servicemen. “The Afghan account is tortured beyond belief and total bull****,” the official told NBC News.
The deaths in Laghman brought the number of foreign soldiers killed this month to 12, prompting NATO to increase security against insider attacks, including requiring soldiers to carry loaded weapons at all times on base.
The deaths also come a week after U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Martin Dempsey visited Kabul to talk about rogue shootings and urge Afghan officials to take tougher preventative action.
Taliban behead 17 civilians after 'late-night dance and music party'
There have been 33 insider attacks so far this year that have led to 42 coalition deaths. That is a sharp increase from 2011, when, during the whole year, 35 coalition troops were killed in such attacks, 24 of whom were American.
In all, 73 Americans have been killed by so-called “friendly forces” in the nearly 11-year war, with more than half occurring in the past eight months.
NBC's Richard Engel discusses the troop "surge" in Afghanistan – something touted as a success by the military, but questioned by many Afghans and also some in the U.S. who worry the troops will leave in 2014 with Afghanistan as a failed state.
Afghanistan's government said on Wednesday it would re-examine the files of 350,000 soldiers and police to help curb rogue shootings of NATO personnel, but accused "foreign spies" of instigating the attacks.
Afghan sources: Top Haqqani militant commander killed
The killings, many of which have been claimed by the Taliban as evidence of insurgent reach and infiltration, have eroded trust between the NATO-Afghan allies and are complicating plans for transition to Afghan security within two years.
NATO commanders have played down the threat of infiltration, blaming most of the shootings on stress or personal differences between Afghans and their Western advisers that ended at the point of a gun, a frequent occurrence in Afghanistan.
But the U.S. general leading NATO forces in Afghanistan acknowledged last Thursday that the Taliban could be traced to more insider attacks than previously acknowledged, accounting for about a quarter of the cases.
US deaths in Afghanistan hit 2,000 in 'forgotten' war
The Afghan government agreed after Dempsey's visit to improve the vetting of army and police recruits by requiring stronger guarantors, a more stringent test questionnaire and biometric data on all would-be and existing personnel.
More undercover intelligence officers would be recruited and placed in Afghan security forces to keep an eye on soldiers and police, while security force members with families in neighboring countries would be heavily scrutinized for possible relations or exposure to cross-border insurgents.
But President Hamid Karzai's spokesman also said the number of attacks was also relatively small given the presence of 120,000 foreign troops among 350,000 Afghan security forces.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Time to leave Afghanistan yet? Or do we wait until it is your son, daughter, nephew, niece, husband, wife, brother, sister....at what point is enough, enough? What do we gain by staying until December 2014 when we could be home earlier, say summer 2013? Save money, save lives - bring our soldiers home from this futile war.
How's your 'winning hearts and minds' or 'building democracy' working for you now, Obama?
Winning the hearts and minds was the vietnam catch phrase. worked real well there too. At least we have not got 58,387 dead. Yet. Thanks again Lyndon. Kennedy told you to stay out.
Yeah and while we are at it lets send them some more money and apologize again and again. It is time to bring the troops home and let Karzai and his cronies have it to themselves.
How many Afghans fought in our civil war?!
Get out of there now before another one of our kids gets killed or wounded!!!! And, good for the troops that capped the Afgan who shot our men.
Troop withdrawal begins next year... I think the real question is that once the Taliban return, and they will because the Afghans don't want freedom that badly, then how will we deal with the new al-Qaida training camps? We will certainly have much more intimate knowledge of the terrain and the political leanings of tribes, etc. I do wish we would accelerate withdrawal.
Good thing we are leaving soon. If GOP had their way we would be in IRAQ and AFG forever.
Obama 2012! Ending wars and bringing the troops home!
No offense but WHEN? There have been more troops killed in afghanistan on obamas watch than on bushes. Its his war now.
Fourth generation warfare strikes again. The inept US-NATO leadership has never had enough soldiers on the ground- not even close because of the US unwillingness to conscript a 1.5 million man occupation army- and the nationalist Afghans know this very well. Afghanistan has 30 million people in it, so they are willing to trade 1 Afghan life for 3 Nato lives. Nothing new about that except today's date in history.
If BUSH did not invade IRAQ there would be no wars by now.
Bush is gone. Get over it.
But the wars he and Cheney began with no intention of winning are still here.
you do realize the invasion of Afghanistan had already happened before Iraq, don't you?
BUSH AND CHENEY BUSH AND CHENEY. WILL SOMEONE WAKE UP. ITS PRESIDENT OBAMA, THE ONE THAT IS RESPONSIBLE TO STOP THE WAR.
I dont care who started it. The one that got elected has not stopped it. So its still bush and cheneys fault for not stopping the war?
Why are we continuing to allow our young servicemen and women to be killed in Afghanistan? It seems in recent months there have been more deaths at the hands of our so-called allies, than killed by the Taliban.
Time to get our folks out, and let the sleazy Karzai deal with the Taliban.
Bush II appointed Karzai. It was a USA set-up puppet gov't. Have you forgotten already?
Obviously a waste of time attempting to communicate with you. You just want to rant about Bush.
The sick thing right now is that distrust is being sowed and all that they have "accomplished" will be for nothing.
Why are we still there? We got OBL. We are done "mission accomplished". Spike the football and bring em home.
I say split Afghanistan into Talibanistan and a puppet Afghanistan and be done with it.
What's needed is a politician's kid, or a rich American elitist's kid to be sent home in an aluminum coffin.
Until then, the "nobody cares about" soldiers will be "assassinated" by these stone age Cretans.
He never said he deserved it either
I'll say this again; the incident(beheading) sorta reminds one of the OLD Testament , Dosen't it?
Get our troops out now and before they leave how about placing a few rounds in the backs of these morons. Let them go back to the stone age culture they deserve. Karsai is useless!
Wow, a Muslim lying about how something really happened, shocking! Ever hear of Taquia, meaning it's OK to lie about anything if it advances the cause of Islam.
Get us out of this war and our government will find another to put us in. When was the last time we did not find someone to fight?
The only boost to the american economy is to keep the war going. We are borrowing the money to pay for it so if we leave at least we wont have to borrow as much.
President Obama: By the number of casualties that have occurred since you became president 2,110, I estimated that with the US pulling out in 2014 we would only lose 1,211 more casualties. Well two more were killed today so now we only have to lose 1,209 more american troops. Sorry could not figure out how many wounded as could not find the information. So since they will survive i will only remind you when troops are kia. Or maybe you could explain that the reason we are still there is not so you can get reelected before the next dip in the recession due to govt cutbacks to defense contractors. Please tell me it aint so joe.
Can anybody, Obama, Mitt, anybody, please tell me when enough borrowed taxpayer money and American lives have been wasted in that hellhole?
Weapons should be locked, loaded and trained on the Afghans 24/7 at this point. Make sure you come home alive.
lessThan99%: Time to take large firefighting aircraft and spray the entire country with pork blood. Then the cant go to pair of dice.
Its time to go.
Can you hear me? I'm screaming and no one hears me. Get the F... out of there.
I can't stand to hear any more of this BS.
Our economy is tanking. Our citizens are being foreclosed. Our 401k's are now 101k's.
And this sh.. continues. Our kids are dying. The ones who are living are becoming disallusioned and fed up.
Hell, we're all fed up. Karzai this, Karzai (sic) that. Haqqani. Al qaeda. Taliban. F... all of them. Nuke them.
And if France, China and Russia go tsk, tsk, tsk, fuc. them too.
Get serious. We are a world power; but in Af"rag"istan, we are looking like fools.
C'mon man!!!!!!!!
Do what the British did. Do what the Russians did.
LEAVE THAT 9TH CENTURY SHIET HOLE !
Forget all that 'hearts & minds' crap! I heard that in Viet Nam. It's BS. You cannot change the spots on a leopard. If a foreign country or group is not actually attacking within your own country....avoid protracted foreign adventures! It's enough we wiped out the al-queda leadership and OBL is fish food. Depart Iraq and Afghanistan soon, very soon!