KABUL, Nov 4, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – One US soldier was killed and another
wounded in an “apparent insider attack” in Kabul on Saturday, NATO said, in
the latest such assault on international forces in Afghanistan.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the third so-called
“green-on-blue” attack in less than three weeks that have rattled foreign
troops tasked with training and assisting the war-torn country’s military.
The Taliban claimed two similar attacks in the western province of Herat
on October 22 and the southern province of Kandahar on October 18. General
Scott Miller, the top NATO and US commander in Afghanistan, narrowly escaped
the latter attack that killed a powerful police chief.
“Initial reports indicate the attacker was a member of the Afghan National
Defense and Security Forces,” NATO’s Resolute Support mission said in a
statement.
The attacker was killed by “other Afghan forces”, it added.
The latest “green-on-blue” attack — in which Afghan forces turn their
weapons on international soldiers with whom they are working — takes the
number of US soldiers to die in Afghanistan this year to eight.
The wounded American soldier was flown to Bagram Airfield north of the
Afghan capital where he was receiving medical treatment. He was in a “stable
condition”.
An investigation into the incident was under way, the statement said.
Local media in the US named the slain soldier as Brent Taylor, the mayor
of North Ogden in Utah state and a father of seven.
Taylor had served two tours in Iraq and was on his second tour to
Afghanistan when he was killed, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Currently, there are about 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan, providing the
main component of the Resolute Support mission to support and train local
forces.
More than 2,000 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since
the start of the war in 2001.
While casualties have fallen dramatically since the withdrawal of NATO
combat troops at the end of 2014, the deadly burden has shifted to
Afghanistan’s security forces, which are suffering record-level casualties.
But the insider attack on a high-level security meeting in Kandahar that
was attended by Miller shocked the US military, whose generals seldom face
attack and are rarely wounded.
The attacker killed three people, including General Abdul Raziq, who was
seen as a bulwark against the Taliban insurgency in the south.
Another 13 people were wounded, including US Brigadier General Jeffrey
Smiley.
That incident was followed four days later by an attack in Herat province
that killed one NATO soldier and wounded two others. All the victims were
Czech.
After the Herat attack the Resolute Support mission scaled back its
operations in Afghanistan for several days, avoiding face-to-face contact
with Afghan counterparts.