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By Rob Taylor
KABUL, Aug 11 (Reuters) – Three U.S. soldiers have been shot
dead by an Afghan worker on a military base in southern
Afghanistan, in a deadly 24 hours for NATO-led forces in the
country during which six soldiers died in rogue attacks.
The shooting took place on Friday night in the Garmsir
district of Helmand province, not far from where three U.S.
special forces soldiers were killed by an Afghan policeman and
comrades earlier in the day.
“Let me clearly say that those two incidents clearly do not
reflect the overall situation here in Afghanistan,” the chief
NATO force spokesman, Brigadier-General Gunter Katz, told
reporters on Saturday.
The soldiers were shot dead by a base employee who turned
his gun on them, in the third rogue attack in four days.
Military sources said the man had not been wearing a uniform and
it was unclear how he got hold of the weapon.
An Afghan police commander and several of his men killed
three U.S. Marines earlier in the day after inviting them to a
dinner to discuss security. Afghan officials had earlier said
that incident happened on Thursday night.
The first three men were all Marine Corps special operations
forces and appeared to have been killed in a planned attack by
rogue Afghan forces. NATO calls such incidents green on blue
attacks.
The NATO force says there have been 26 such attacks on
foreign troops since January in which 34 people have been
killed. Last year, there were 21 attacks in which 35 people were
killed.
Green on blue shootings, in which Afghan police or soldiers
turn their guns on their Western colleagues, have seriously
eroded trust between the allies as NATO combat soldiers prepare
to hand over to Afghan forces by 2014, after which most foreign
forces will leave the country.
But Katz said the incidents were relatively isolated and
were not hurting morale or cooperation between foreign forces
and the 350,000-strong Afghan Security Forces.
“We have almost 500,000 police and soldiers working
together, side by side, enhancing their trust and enhancing
their cooperation in order together to fight for a better future
for this country,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Robert
Birsel)
