Attacker in Afghan uniform kills 2 NATO troops

An Afghan soldier photographs blood stains at the site of the shooting spree, allegedly a US soldier in Panjwai, Kandahar (AP)

Kabul:  A man in an Afghan army uniform shot and killed two British soldiers on Monday inside a NATO base in southern Afghanistan, officials said.

The attack appeared to be the latest in a string of so-called "green on blue" attacks in which Afghan security forces have turned on their international colleagues or mentors. Such attacks have become increasingly common over the past year, particularly since the burning of Qurans at a US base in February.

Six US soldiers were killed in apparent revenge attacks following that act, which also sparked riots that left dozens of Afghans dead. US officials have said the religious materials were burned by mistake.

Details were still sketchy about Monday morning's attack. The US-led coalition said in a statement that an individual wearing an Afghan soldier's uniform turned his weapon against international troops. NATO forces then returned fire.

"The gunman was shot and killed," said coalition spokesman Major Jason Waggoner. He declined to provide further details.

Since 2007, Afghan security force attacks on coalition troops have resulted in the deaths of more than 75 NATO service members and the wounding of more than 110 others, according to the Pentagon. More than 75 percent of the attacks have occurred in the past two years.

It is also possible that the assailant was an insurgent who donned an Afghan army uniform to get into the base or to get closer to his targets. Army uniforms are readily available in Afghan markets and militants have used the tactic in the past to launch sneak attacks.

A Western official in southern Afghanistan confirmed that the incident happened at the main NATO base in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province, but declined to give further information. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been officially released.

Monday's attack also comes two weeks after a US soldier allegedly went on a pre-dawn shooting rampage in neighboring Kandahar province, killing 17 people and wounding six.

The Lashkar Gah base is dominated by British forces and a NATO official said the two victims were British soldiers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not yet been formally announced.

Britain's Ministry of Defense said it was aware of the incident, but refused to release any more details or confirm whether the soldiers were British.

The killings come at a time when international troops have stepped up training and mentoring of Afghan soldiers, police and government workers so that Afghans can take the lead and the foreign forces can go home.

The success of the partnership, which is the focus of the US-led coalition's exit strategy, is threatened by the rising number of Afghan police and soldiers - or militants disguised in their uniforms - who are turning their guns on their foreign allies.

On March 1, two US troops were killed by two Afghan soldiers and an accomplice on a joint US-Afghan base in Zhari district of Kandahar province in the south.

On February 25, two US military advisers were found dead with shots to the back of the head inside the Afghan Interior Ministry in Kabul.

Two US troops were killed February 23 by an Afghan soldier during an anti-Western protest in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan over the Quran burning.

The US apologized for the burning, saying the Islamic texts were mistakenly sent to a garbage burn pit Feb. 20 at Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul. But the incident raised what had been simmering animosity toward outsiders to a full boil. Deadly protests raged around the nation for six days - the most visible example of a deep-seated resentment bred by what Afghans view is a general lack of respect for their culture and religion.

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At Afghan prison, female visitors face invasive searches

Kabul:  Women visiting relatives at a notorious men's prison on the edge of Kabul have in recent weeks been subjected to invasive body-cavity searches at the order of the prison's commandant, who has told guards and American officials that the measure is needed to keep out contraband, Western and Afghan officials said.

Most male visitors get into the American-financed prison with a mere pat down. Almost all female visitors, meanwhile, undergo a vaginal search without reasonable suspicion or recourse.

"It was killing me to go through this disgusting way of body search," said a woman whose husband was imprisoned at the Pul-e-Charki prison, Afghanistan's largest detention centre, and who after dozens of visits is still being searched. "I was telling the female prison guard, 'this is against all human values and dignity.' "

American officials agree, as do some Afghan officials, and they have repeatedly pressed Interior Minster Bismillah Khan Mohammadi and the commandant of the prison, Gen. Muhammad Khan, to stop the practice.

Having been repeatedly rebuffed, the Americans on Thursday tried to use the best lever they have: they cut off all American financing to Pul-e-Charki until they can confirm that the invasive searches have stopped, two Western officials said. The United States has spent about $14.2 million on improvements at the prison since June 2009.  

But with no word yet on what impact the latest American move has had, Western officials and rights advocates here are viewing the hard line as a troubling sign: not just of waning Western influence as relations have worsened, but also for of maintaining hard-won gains in rights for women in Afghanistan as the prospect of a speeded-up American withdrawal has become a greater possibility.

This is not an oversimplified case of high-minded Westerners versus conservative Afghans. The West's role in Afghanistan empowered many Afghans to champion women's and minority rights in the past decade, and those home-grown reformers have helped establish most of the social changes that have been seen as encouraging steps here.

Yet the Afghans at the forefront of pressing for those rights are already finding themselves increasingly marginalized as Afghanistan's old guard flexes its muscles. In fact, the official in charge of all Afghanistan's civilian prisons, Gen. Amir Jamshid, has tried and failed to stop the invasive searches of women, his objections overridden by Mr. Mohammadi, the interior minister, Afghan and American officials said. Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid offending their Afghan counterparts.

Other worrying signs have appeared. President Hamid Karzai in December removed outspoken members of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which is appointed by the government but acts independently. Then earlier this month, Afghanistan's Ulema Council, the country's highest religious authority, released a "code of conduct" that suggested it was permissible for a man to beat his wife under certain circumstances. President Karzai endorsed the code last week, in a move seen as part of his efforts to reach out to hard-liners among the Taliban ahead of an American withdrawal.

"There has been important progress made on human rights in the last 10 years largely due to brave Afghans inside and outside the government," said Heather Barr, the Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch. "But they've needed international support and without it, they may see their work become impossible."

American officials cautioned that trouble at one prison did not herald the overall collapse of Western influence, and that they believed they could still effect change, especially a Pul-e-Charki, which houses about 7,000 convicts.

But they have so far failed to stop the invasive searches, which were first noticed by American mentors at the prison in mid-February, according to multiple American and Western officials.

The Americans have since then twice received assurances the practice would stop - once from General Khan and then later from Mr. Mohammadi, the minister. It has nonetheless continued, and the American Embassy said this week it was still discussing the matter with the Interior Ministry. It is not clear whether women face the same kinds of searches at Afghanistan's other civilian prisons.

Since June 2009, the United States has earmarked $26.8 million for renovations at the prison, and just over half of that has already been spent. "I don't think we'd be facing the same kind of resistance if this was last year or the year before," said one American official in Kabul. "We're going, and they know it."

A request from The New York Times to visit Pul-e-Charki was turned down by the Interior Ministry.

Saturday is the next visiting day at Pul-e-Charki, which is run by civilian authorities. General Khan, who comes from the police force, said in a telephone interview the searches would continue. "Stopping somebody hiding narcotics or mobile phone or banned items, that's not a violation of their rights," he said.

The prison, he said, was thick with Taliban detainees and rife with contraband and needed to be brought under control. He said Taliban commanders held there were plotting attacks in Kabul, a view shared by American officials.

General Khan said the invasive searches would stop once America bought an X-ray machine for the prison - a purchase American officials say they have no plans to make. He added that men suspected of smuggling could also face a similar kind of search. And he insisted that the searches were only conducted on "suspicious" women.

That account was countered by a female guard at the prison and by Western and Afghan officials familiar with the situation.

"We have been strictly ordered to search genital areas of all the women who are visiting the prisoners," said the guard, who asked not to be named for fear of losing her job. She added that even the prisoners, all of whom are men, are only patted down after meeting visitors.

She said that the guards sometimes find phones or drugs in some searches, but that she was still uncomfortable with the blanket order to search all women. She said many of her fellow guards felt the same, and they sometimes let women pass without a search when they can.

The Afghan woman who had been subjected to the searches said the practice had been going on since at least last year, though it had gotten stricter in the past few months. "I have been subjected to this humiliating type of body search more than 20 to 25 times," said the woman, who did not want to be identified because she felt ashamed.

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Afghan Taliban threaten to behead US soldiers; govt team attacked

Kabul:  Suspected insurgents fired on an Afghan government delegation on Tuesday investigating the massacre of 16 civilians by a US soldier, officials said, hours after the Taliban threatened to behead American troops to avenge the killings.

Two of President Hamid Karzai's brothers, Shah Wali Karzai and Addul Qayum Karzai, were with senior defence, intelligence and interior ministry officials travelling to the scene of the massacre in Najiban and Alekozai villages, in Kandahar's Panjwai district, when insurgents opened fire.

Karzai's brothers were unharmed in the brief gun battle during meetings at a village mosque, but a soldier and a civilian were wounded. The area is a Taliban stronghold and a supply route.

"The Islamic Emirate once again warns the American animals that the mujahideen will avenge them, and with the help of Allah will kill and behead your sadistic murderous soldiers," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement, using the term with which the Islamist group describes itself.

As the first protest broke out in Jalalabad city over the weekend shootings, the Taliban said Afghan government demands for an open trial of the US Army staff sergeant being held for the slayings would not blunt civilian hostility towards Western combat troops.

The unnamed US soldier - said to have only recently arrived in the country - is accused of walking off his base in Kandahar province in the middle of the night and gunning down at least 16 villagers, mostly women and children.

A US official said the accused soldier had suffered a traumatic brain injury while on a previous deployment in Iraq.

The shootings, which came just weeks after deadly protests across the country over the inadvertent burning of Korans by US soldiers, triggered a protest by around 2,000 students in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

The demonstrators chanted "Death to America" and demanded Afghan President Hamid Karzai reject plans to sign a strategic pact with Washington that would allow US advisers and possibly special forces to remain in the country beyond the planned withdrawal in 2014.

US President Barack Obama, speaking after a phone call with Karzai - who is said to be furious over the latest deaths - said the shootings had only increased his determination to get American troops out of Afghanistan.

However, Obama cautioned there should not be a "rush to the exits" for US forces who have been fighting in Afghanistan since late 2001 and that the drawdown set for the end of 2014 should be done in a responsible way.

The soldier, from a conventional unit, was based at a joint U.S.-Afghan base used by elite U.S. troops under a so-called village support programme hailed by NATO as a possible model for U.S. involvement in the country after the 2014 drawdown.

Such bases provide support to local Afghan security units and provide a source of security advice and training, as well as anti-insurgent backup and intelligence.

A spokesman for Kandahar governor Tooryalai Wisa said that tribal elders in the area of the massacre would urge against protests and work to dampen public anger if the investigation process was transparent.

"They are supporting the government and will accept any conclusion by the investigators. Today we have meetings with people in the area and all will become clear," spokesman Ahmad Jawid Faisal said.

NATO officials said it was too early to tell if the US soldier would be tried in the United States or Afghanistan if investigators were to find enough evidence to charge him, but he would be under U.S. laws and procedures under an agreement between US and Afghan officials.

Typically, once the initial investigation is completed, prosecutors decide if they have enough evidence to file charges and then could move to an Article 32 or court martial hearing.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Monday that the death penalty could be sought in the U.S. military justice system against the soldier, but portrayed the shooting as an isolated event that would not alter withdrawal plans.

While Afghan MPs in parliament called for a trial under Afghan law, Karzai's office was understood to accept that a trial in a U.S. court would be acceptable provided the process was transparent and open to media.

Analysts said the incident would complicate U.S. efforts to reach agreement with the Afghan government on a post-2014 security pact before a May summit in the U.S. city of Chicago on the future size and funding of Afghan security forces.

Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network said that despite NATO and White House references to the killings as the work of a "rogue" soldier, other similar events had happened before, including a "kill team" apprehended in Kandahar in 2010.

"In the stress of an environment of escalated violence - by both sides, but particularly after Obama's troop surge in early 2009, it looks as if most soldiers simply see Afghanistan as a whole as 'enemy territory' and every Afghan as a potential terrorist. This can no longer be called 'rogue'," Ruttig said.

NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, Marine General John Allen, has promised a rapid investigation of the massacre, while security was being reviewed at NATO bases across the country.

Copyright@Thompson Reuters 2012

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Afghan delegation attacked by militants at site of US killings

Balandi, Afghanistan:  Taliban militants opened fire on Tuesday on an Afghan government delegation visiting one of the two villages in southern Afghanistan where a US soldier is suspected of killing 16 civilians.

The gunfire killed an Afghan soldier who was providing security for the delegation, said Gen. Abdul Razaq, the police chief for Kandahar province where the visit took place. Another Afghan soldier and a military prosecutor were wounded in the attack, he said.

The attack in Balandi village came as the Taliban vowed to kill and behead those responsible for the 16 Afghan civilians killed on Sunday.

The delegation, which included two of President Hamid Karzai's brothers and other senior officials, was holding a memorial service in a mosque for victims when the shooting started.

One of the president's brothers, Qayum Karzai, said the attack didn't seem serious to him.

"We were giving them our condolences, then we heard two very, very light shots," said Karzai. "Then we assumed that it was the national army that started to fire in the air."

He said the members of the delegation, which also included Kandahar governor Tooryalai Wesa and Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid, were safe and headed back to Kandahar city.

The US is holding an Army staff sergeant in custody who is suspected of carrying out the killings before dawn on Sunday in two villages close to his base in Panjwai district, considered the birthplace of the Taliban.

Villagers have described him stalking from house to house in the middle of the night, opening fire on sleeping families and then burning some of the bodies of the dead afterward.

Nine of the 16 killed were children, and three were women, according to Karzai.

Hundreds of students in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday shouted angry slogans against the United States and the American soldier accused of carrying out the killings, the first significant protest in response to the tragedy.

The killings have caused outrage in Afghanistan but have not sparked the kind of violent protests seen last month after American soldiers burned Muslim holy books and other Islamic texts.

The more muted response could be a result of Afghans being used to dealing with civilian casualties in over a decade of war. Some have said the slayings in Panjwai were more in keeping with Afghans' experience of deadly night raids and airstrikes by US-led forces than the Quran burnings were.

But the students protesting at a university in Jalalabad city, 80 miles (125 kilometers) east of the capital Kabul, were incensed.

"Death to America!" and "Death to the soldier who killed our civilians!" shouted the crowd.

Some carried a banner that called for a public trial of the soldier, who US officials have identified as a married, 38-year-old father of two who was trained as a sniper and recently suffered a head injury in Iraq.

Other protesters burned an effigy of President Barack Obama.

"The reason we are protesting is because of the killing of innocent children and other civilians by this tyrant US soldier," said Sardar Wali, a university student. "We want the United Nations and the Afghan government to publicly try this guy."

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement sent to reporters on Tuesday that the soldier should be tried as a war criminal and executed by the victims' relatives.

Obama has expressed his shock and sadness and extended his condolences to the families of the victims. But he has also said the horrific episode would not speed up plans to pull out foreign forces, despite increasing opposition at home to the war in Afghanistan.

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Kandahar massacre: Afghan lawmakers demand US soldier's public trial

Kabul:  The Afghan Parliament demanded on Monday that a US soldier who went on a shooting spree and killed 16 villagers in their homes should be put on public trial in Afghanistan.

"We seriously demand and expect that the government of the United States punish the culprits and try them in a public trial before the people of Afghanistan," the lower house of Parliament said in statement.

The US soldier walked off his base, heavily armed and with night vision equipment, and broke into three village homes before dawn on Sunday, killing 16 people including women and children, according to Western and Afghan sources.

Condemning the killings as "brutal and inhuman", Parliament declared that "people are running out of patience over the ignorance of foreign forces".

President Barack Obama telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to promise a speedy investigation into the killings, which fanned already smoldering anger among Afghans over the burning of Qurans at a US military base last month.

Sunday's massacre poses an acute test of the US-Afghan alliance, as the two countries pursue difficult talks on securing a strategic pact to govern their partnership once foreign combat troops leave Afghanistan in 2014.

"When Afghan people are killed deliberately by US forces, this action is murder and terror and an unforgivable action," Mr Karzai said.

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