|
| FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2009 file photo, U.S. Marine squad leader Sgt. Matthew Duquette, left, of Warrenville, Ill., with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion 5th Marines walks with Afghan National Army Lt. Hussein, during in a joint patrol in Nawa district, Helmand province, southern Afghanistan. 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) -- A firefight broke out between U.S. forces and
their Afghan army allies in eastern Afghanistan Sunday, killing two
Americans and three Afghan soldiers and pushing the number of U.S.
troops killed in the long-running war 2,000.
The
fighting started Saturday when what is believed to have been a mortar
fired by insurgents struck a checkpoint set up by U.S. forces in Wardak
province, said Shahidullah Shahid, a provincial government spokesman. He
said the Americans thought they were under attack from a nearby Afghan
army checkpoint and fired on it, prompting the Afghan soldiers to return
fire.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said the
gunbattle was the result of a "misunderstanding" between international
forces and Afghan soldiers manning a checkpoint in the Sayd Abad
district.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force, commonly referred to as ISAF, provided a different account.
"After
a short conversation took place between (Afghan army) and ISAF
personnel firing occurred which resulted in the fatal wounding of an
ISAF soldier and the death of his civilian colleague," the coalition
said in a statement. It said the three Afghan soldiers died "in an
ensuing exchange of fire."
NATO did not say whether it considered this an "insider" attack on foreign forces by Afghan allies.
There
has been rising tide of such attacks in which Afghan soldiers or police
assault their international allies. The killings pose one of the
greatest threats to NATO's mission in the country, endangering a
partnership key to training up Afghan security forces and withdrawing
international troops.
While it may be days
before it becomes clear who fired on whom first, the incident
illustrates how tense relations have become between international troops
and their Afghan allies.
Officials on both
sides went into damage control mode, arguing that Saturday's violence
did not mark a new low in Afghan-U.S. relations and urging patience
while investigators tried to figure out exactly what had happened.
The
deputy commander of NATO's military force in Afghanistan, British Lt.
Gen. Adrian Bradshaw, called a last-minute news conference in Kabul to
address the incident, even though he had few details to give.
He
said the initial report of an insider attack should be amended to note
that the incident "is now understood possibly to have involved insurgent
fire," and tried to stress that relations between international troops
and their Afghan allies "are very strong and very effective."
A spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, Gen. Zahir Azimi, also sought to downplay the incident.
"In
a misunderstanding shooting broke out between Afghan army and ISAF
forces. As a result of the shooting, three army soldiers were killed,
three other soldiers were wounded and number of ISAF forces were killed
and wounded," Azimi said in a statement.
One
U.S. official confirmed that the service member killed was American,
while another confirmed that the civilian was also American. The
officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the nationality of the
dead had not yet been formally announced.
The
number of American military dead reflects an Associated Press count of
those members of the armed services killed inside Afghanistan since the
U.S.-led invasion on Oct. 7, 2001.
In the
south meanwhile, three Afghan police officers were killed when
insurgents attacked a checkpoint in Helmand province Sunday morning,
provincial police spokesman Fareed Ahmad said.
