|
| FILE - In this July 9, 2010 file photograph, an Afghan National Army soldier wears an ammunition belt around his neck during a joint patrol with United States Army soldiers from Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion of the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne, in the volatile Arghandab Valley, outside Kandahar City. U.S. military officials have noted that Afghan security forces are dying in insider attacks along with foreign troops, but so far, the Afghan government has not provided statistics on the number killed. |
KABUL,
Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghan Army Sgt. Habibullah Hayar didn't know
it, but he had been sleeping with his enemy for weeks.
Twenty
days ago, one of his roommates was arrested for allegedly plotting an
insider attack against their unit, which is partnered with NATO forces
in eastern Paktia province.
Afghan soldiers
and policemen - or militants in their uniforms - have gunned down more
than 50 foreign troops so far this year, eroding the trust between
coalition forces and their Afghan partners. An equal number of Afghan
policemen and soldiers also died in these attacks, giving them reason as
well to be suspicious of possible infiltrators within their ranks.
"It's
not only foreigners. They are targeting Afghan security forces too,"
said the 21-year-old Hayar, who was in Kabul on leave. "Sometimes, I
think what kind of situation is this that a Muslim cannot trust a Muslim
- even a brother cannot trust a brother. It's so confused. Nobody knows
what's going on."
The attacks are taking a
toll on the partnership, prompting the U.S. military to restrict
operations with small-sized Afghan units earlier this month.
The
close contact - with coalition forces working side by side with Afghan
troops as advisers, mentors and trainers - is a key part of the U.S.
strategy for putting the Afghans in the lead as the U.S. and other
nations prepare to pull out their last combat troops at the end of 2014,
just 27 months away.
The U.S. military also has shown increasing anger over the attacks.
"I'm
mad as hell about them, to be honest with you," Gen. John Allen, the
top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told CBS' "60
Minutes" in an interview scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday.
"It
reverberates everywhere across the United States. You know, we're
willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign, but we're not willing to
be murdered for it."
So far this year, 51
foreign troops - at least half of them Americans - have been killed in
insider attacks. The Afghan government has not provided statistics on
the number of its forces killed in insider attacks. However, U.S.
military statistics obtained by The Associated Press show at least 53
members of the Afghan security forces had been killed as of the end of
August.
A U.S. military official disclosed the
numbers on condition of anonymity because he said it was up to Afghan
officials to formally release the figures. An Afghan defense official
who was shown the statistics said he had no reason to doubt their
accuracy.
Overall, the statistics show that at
least 135 Afghan policemen and soldiers have been killed in insider
attacks since 2007. That's more than the 118 foreign service members -
mostly Americans - killed in such attacks since then, according to NATO.
Typically,
foreign troops are the main targets, but Afghan forces also have been
killed by comrades angry over their collaboration with Westerners and
many more get killed in the crossfire, Defense Ministry spokesman Gen.
Zahir Azimi said. He said the ministry did not have a breakdown of how
many had been targeted or killed in gunbattles during the attacks.
In
at least one instance, an Afghan police officer with alleged ties to
militants, killed 10 of his fellow officers on Aug. 11 at a checkpoint
in southwestern Nimroz province. An Afghan soldier also was killed on
April 25 when a fellow soldier opened fire on a U.S. service member and
his translator in Kandahar province, the southern birthplace of the
Taliban.
Last year, a suicide bomber in an
Afghan police uniform blew himself up May 28 in Takhar province, killing
two NATO service members and four Afghans, including a senior police
commander. And just a week before that, four Taliban fighters wearing
suicide vests under police uniforms attacked a government building in
Khost province, triggering a gunbattle that left three Afghan policemen
and two Afghan soldiers dead. On April 16, an Afghan soldier walked into
a meeting of NATO trainers and Afghan troops in Laghman province, blew
himself up, killing five U.S. troops, four Afghan soldiers and an
interpreter.
"It's difficult to know an attacker from a non-attacker when everybody is wearing a uniform, Hayar said.
The
attacker was one of seven people rounded up earlier this month from
various units within the Afghan National Army Corps 203, Hayar said. The
corps covers the eastern Afghan provinces of Paktia, Paktika, Ghazni,
Wardak, Logar and Khost.
"He was together with
me in my room with some of my other colleagues. He had a long beard. We
didn't know anything about him. We were living together, sleeping
together," said Hayar, who has been in the Afghan army for 2 1/2 years.
He
said the suspected infiltrator was identified after a Taliban militant
arrested in Logar told his Afghan interrogators that members of the
fundamentalist Islamic movement had infiltrated the corps and were
planning imminent attacks. That prompted Hayar's superiors to start
questioning soldiers in various units.
Hayar
said his roommate's uneasy reaction raised suspicion, and investigators
found Taliban songs saved to the memory card of his cell phone. He was
then detained by Afghan intelligence officials and confessed he was a
member of the Taliban and planned to stage attacks.
Hayar says he assumes his former bunkmate was probably going after foreign forces, but it makes him uncomfortable nevertheless.
"It's
very hard to trust anybody - even a roommate," he said. "Whenever I'm
not on duty, I lock my weapon and keep the key myself. I don't put my
weapon under my pillow to sleep because maybe someone will grab it and
shoot me with my own weapon."
To counter such
attacks, the U.S. military earlier this year stopped training about
1,000 members of the Afghan Local Police, a controversial network of
village-defense units. U.S. commanders have assigned some troops to be
"guardian angels" who watch over their comrades even as they sleep. U.S.
officials also recently ordered American troops to carry loaded weapons
at all time, even when they are on their bases.
Then,
after a string of insider attacks, Allen this month restricted
operations carried out alongside with small-sized Afghan units.
Coalition troops have routinely conducted patrols or manned outposts
with small groups of Afghan counterparts, but Allen's directive said
such operations would no longer be considered routine and required the
approval of the regional commander.
For their
part, Afghan authorities have detained or removed hundreds of soldiers
as part of its effort to re-screen its security forces. The Ministry of
Defense also released a 28-page training booklet this month that advises
soldiers not to be personally offended when foreign troops do things
Afghans view as deeply insulting.
The booklet
urges them not to take revenge for foreign troops' social blunders, such
as blowing their noses in public, stepping into a mosque with their
shoes on, walking in front of a soldier who is praying or asking about
their wives.
"Most of the coalition members
are interested to share pictures of their families. It is not a big deal
for them. If someone asks you about your family, especially the females
in your family, don't think they are disrespecting you or trying to
insult you," the booklet says.
"That is not
the case. By asking such questions, they are trying to show that they
want to learn more about you. You can very easily explain to them that
nobody in Afghanistan would ask, especially about wives or females in
the family."
