Afghan Soldier "Mistakenly" Shoots Three Americans

Afghanistan

The Gift That Just Keeps Giving

(The Guardian)  -  An Afghan soldier opened fire on Sunday inside a base in the southern Helmand province, wounding three US soldiers before being shot dead, an Afghan official said.

Colonel Mohammad Rasoul Zazai, an army spokesman, said the soldier had made a “mistake” and had not fired deliberately. A coalition-run Twitter account said an Afghan soldier shot and wounded three American soldiers, without providing further details.

Afghanistan civilian deaths may have been caused by US airstrike

Several US troops have been killed in Afghanistan in recent years in so-called insider attacks carried out by Afghan police or soldiers. In October, an Afghan man in a military uniform shot dead a US soldier and an American civilian contractor inside a military base in Kabul before being killed.

Most foreign combat troops withdrew from Afghanistan at the end of 2014, 13 years after they ousted the Taliban from power, but about 13,000 Nato-led soldiers remain to help advise and train Afghan forces fighting a revived Taliban insurgency.

Last May two Romanian soldiers were killed and a third wounded after two members of a local Afghan police unit they were training shot them.

Camp Shorab in Helmand, previously known as Camp Bastion, is a major former US and British base now run by the Afghan army.

Helmand has been one of the most fiercely contested regions of the country, with nearly 1,000 coalition troops killed there since the US-led military intervention in 2001.

The US said in January that about 300 marines would be sent to Helmand to assist Afghan forces battling the Islamist insurgents in intelligence and logistics matters.

Read More . . . .